Jihadists move East

Aug. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Police locked down Kashgar, cut Internet access in China's westernmost major city and detained journalists after an attack yesterday by members of the Uighur ethnic group killed 16 officers, according to media reports.

Two reporters working for Japan's Chunichi newspaper and Nippon Television Network were detained by police for two hours and beaten before being released, Kyodo English News said, citing the journalists' employers.

``Journalists are forbidden to enter the area controlled by border police, but the two disobeyed the rules,'' Kashgar's government spokesman Eskar said today, according to a report by state news agency Xinhua. ``We are sorry for the incident and the damage to the equipment that belonged to the reporters.'' [but not for the beating, they totally deserved that. Being reporters. Talking about what they see. Attackson cops. Totally deserved it.]

Police detained two suspects after yesterday's attack, describing them as ethnic Uighurs, a predominantly Muslim minority group in Xinjiang province, state-owned Xinhua said. The authorities, counting Xinjiang's East Turkistan Islamic Movement as China's largest terror threat, have clamped down on the region's security and detained Uighur suspects ahead of Beijing's Aug. 8 Olympic Games.

Kashgar's population of 3.3 million people is 90 percent Uighur, mostly Muslims who speak a different language and bear little resemblance to ethnic-Han Chinese. They are fighting to get their own nation, between China and Tajikistan.

Police found nine home-made bombs, a gun, machetes and literature about a ``holy war'' at the scene of the attack, China's Public Security Ministry said today in a statement without giving further details.

a note on the beatings:Chunichi's newspaper photographer Masami Kawakita, 38, and Nippon Television's reporter Shinji Katsuta, 37, suffered light injuries after they were taken from their hotel by police and beaten, Kyodo said today. Kawakita's equipment was partially destroyed, Kyodo said.
The border police have apologized after they ``clashed'' with the journalists who were trying to film a restricted area under police control, Xinhua said.