August 09, 2005

Suicide Bomber Blows Up Bus in China: Government Covers Up (UPDATED)

UPDATE 8/11: Jihadis from Western China released several propaganda videos. The videos proclaim jihad against Beijing, accusing the Communist government of ties to Christian forces. We will post a link to the video as soon as we find a host. Images from the video will be available shortly.

Scroll down for more updates.

Bloggers from China are reporting that a suicide bomber has blown up a bus in Fuzhou City, Fujian Province, at around 2:30pm, August 8th. According to Peacehall.com, police have confiscated the cameras of those who took pictures. I first learned of this from Aaron at Hagganah Internet.

Bloggers in China have uploaded many pictures from the incident, though. Aaron, from Internet Hagganah, has archived many of the photos here. More pictures archived here and here and here. We have reproduced some of the photos below, some of which are graphic.

The official story is that only one person was killed, but from the 'unofficial' pictures, it is clear that at least three were killed--probably a lot more.

I have not seen much MSM coverage of this, although it seems like a big deal. Here is how China Daily reports the story:

FUZHOU: A suicide bomber blew himself up on a bus in central Fuzhou yesterday, killing himself and injuring 31 others, local police said.

The blast in the capital of East China's Fujian Province went off at 2:32 pm as the No 5 bus pulled in at the Dongjiekou Stop in Dongda Road, one of the city's busiest streets....

There was a deafening "big bang," said Lin Lina, a female employee working in an office building on the roadside.

"Thick smoke rose into the sky, and we couldn't see or tell what was happening," Lin said...

The shockwave from the home-made explosives was so huge that the windows of a nearby store shattered, according to the sohu.com website....

Police later said the explosion came from a second-row seat on the right-hand side of the bus.

The suspected bomber, Huang Maojin, died on the spot.

Huang, 42, was a farmer from Fujian's Gutian County.

According to a suicide note found by police, he had been suffering from lung cancer for about two years.

In the letter, Huang said he had a dispute with one of his neighbours in 2002. He claimed he had been unfairly treated by the local public security department and was sentenced to jail until the end of 2003.

The imprisonment delayed treatment of his illness, he claimed.

Huang's family was heavily in debt and his children were unable to go to school because of lack of money, the letter said.

Police are still investigating the case.

What many people in the West are unaware of, is that China is fighting a low-level Islamist insurgency in its Western provinces. Fujian Province, however is not in Western China but in Southeastern China. Not generally a hot bed for Islamist sentiments.

UPDATE: Ed, at Talking Hoarsely, has done some background research here. I would just add that nowhere can I verify the number of Muslims in Fujian left by a commenter. As far as I can tell, the Islamist seperatist are generally in the Xinjiang and Qinghai provinces.

Like I said, socialist-medicine induced terrorism is generally not as sexy as Islam inspired terrorism.

But he does find this very interesting background story on the broader point--which is that, to paraphrase Huntington, "The borders of Islam are bloody." :

'The conflicting movements of Uighur separatism, abetted by Islamist organizations abroad, and Chinese internal and economic interests, suggest that further and serious conflict may be expected.

The dearth of research into radical Islam in Asia is in itself a cause for concern. One reason for this may be that states affected by separatism such as the Philippines, Thailand, and China prefer not to admit to a problem. This may be cultural. The Asian concept of saving face may be an element of the difficulty. It may, however, be a fear of losing overseas investment if there is an emphasis on factors that suggest future instability.'

Mathew Stinson hopes this is 'an isolated incident', but this tidbit from The BBC via The Stalwart might indicate otherwise:

There were more than a thousand reported bombings last year.

Most go unreported by the country's tightly-controlled state media.

Joe T. of In Hell There Are No Nightlites sums up my feelings on the subject pretty well. Check it out.

Others: The Horse's Mouth, The Shanghaist, The Daily Missive, ZoneEuropa has extensive coverage of this (thanks Simon).

Images from 'unofficial' Chinese sources archived below. Warning: Some are graphic, but I have not included the most graphic photos which can be found in links above.

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Click for larger image.