Jihad in China?

«People are very shocked, because of this kind of thing happening here in Kunming», has said a hotel employer. Crédits photo : AP

Is the terrorism specter, agitated by Peking before the Oympic Games, going to be a reality? Two bus exploded on Monday morning, in less than an hour, in the center of Kunming, the Yunnan's capital, a Chinese South-West province. The explosions which took place in the morning's peak time, have killed two persons (Note: this morning another one died as a result of the explosions) and wounded another 14. The first explosion, at 7 o'clock in the morning, killed a woman and wounded 10 people. The bus, which had the windows blown to pieces and the seats absolutely destroyed, was stopped just in front of a hospital. The second happened some time after, in the same avenue, killing a man and wounding four people.

The police cordoned off both places after the explosions and began controlling the identity of all the people in the city to find the authors of the attack. The authorities have been persuaded that it was a terrorist attack, although the investigators have only denounced it as a sabotage.

This hypothesis, presented as a certainty by the authorities, appears after Chinese authorities have considered for some weeks the terrorist menace, specially from the Muslim province of Xinjiang to justify the strict security measures regarding the Olympics. In April, Peking announced the dismantlement in that province of two terrorist groups which were plotting to commit terrorist suicide attacks and kidnapping foreigners from the "Olympic villas". In July, the authorities announced the arrest of 82 "terrorists" who belong to a turco-phone ethnia.

The place of the explosions after the attack, courtesy of Italian newspaper Il Corriere (Reuters)