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A leading al-Qaeda figure has urged Uighurs in Xinjiang to launch a holy war against "oppressive" China -the most serious threat yet against Beijing from the terrorist movement.
He also accused China of using "satanic ways" to oppress Muslims in the autonomous region and replacing them with other ethnicities while "looting their wealth and undermining their culture and religion".
"Consecutive Chinese governments have worked hard to sever every link between the wounded people of Turkestan and the Muslim nation," he said. "They are applying [policies] for their demise and destruction so that their numbers would decline and its Islamic identity would be dissolved."
Text of report by Hong Kong newspaper South China Morning Post website on 8 October
["Al-Qaeda Leader Targets China, Terrorist Group Calls for Jihad in Xinjiang"]
A leading al-Qaeda figure has urged Uighurs in Xinjiang to launch a holy war against "oppressive" China -the most serious threat yet against Beijing from the terrorist movement.
Abu Yahya al-Libi appeared in a video posted on an Islamist website yesterday to warn that China would collapse, just like the former Soviet Union did two decades ago.
"The state of atheism is heading to its fall. It will face what befell the Russian bear," he said, accusing China of massacring Uighurs and seeking to dissolve their identity.
"There is no way to remove injustice and oppression without a true return to their [the Uighur's] religion and ... serious preparation for jihad in the path of God the Almighty and to carry weapons in the face of those [Chinese] invaders.
"It is a duty for Muslims today to stand by their wounded and oppressed brothers in East Turkestan ... and support them with all they can."
He also accused China of using "satanic ways" to oppress Muslims in the autonomous region and replacing them with other ethnicities while "looting their wealth and undermining their culture and religion".
Libi, like many other al-Qaeda leaders, is a veteran of the Islamic insurgency that battled Soviet forces following the invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, helping to force its withdrawal 10 years later.
He is now considered the third most powerful figure in the movement, with key operational and inspirational roles.
His comments mark the first time core al-Qaeda leaders have shown a willingness to take their fight to China.
In the video, Libi said Muslims around the world needed to be made aware of the situation of Xinjiang's Uighurs.
"Consecutive Chinese governments have worked hard to sever every link between the wounded people of Turkestan and the Muslim nation," he said. "They are applying [policies] for their demise and destruction so that their numbers would decline and its Islamic identity would be dissolved."
Uighurs are native to oil-and gas-rich Xinjiang, which Islamists call East Turkestan, and have cultural ties to Turkic peoples in Central Asia.
Beijing is expected to take the threat seriously. A Foreign Ministry spokesman said the government would check reports but could not yet comment.
Libi's comments follow a call by al-Qaeda's North African off-shoot, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, three months ago for the deaths of Muslims in the regional capital, Urumqi, to be avenged.
That call, seeking to target China's growing North African-based workforce and investments, was the first time Osama bin Laden's terrorist network had directly threatened China or its interests and highlighted the international price China was paying for hardline policies in Xinjiang.
"This latest video could be the endorsement from on-high that everyone had been fearing," one diplomat working on terrorism issues said. "The earlier threat related to North Africa ... now the AQ leadership is broadening the fight against China.
"It is certainly the first time a figure from the core leadership has shown a willingness to take the fight to China."
In August, the leader of a group calling itself the Turkestan Islamic Party urged Muslims to attack Chinese interests to punish Beijing for what he described as massacres of Uighur Muslims. The group has claimed responsibility for violent attacks in the past, including the bombing of two public buses in Shanghai in May last year.
Xinjiang witnessed a wave of violence in July when Uighurs attacked Han Chinese in Urumqi after police tried to break up a protest about the killing of Uighur workers at a factory in Shaoguan, Guangdong, in June.
The violence saw 197 people killed and more than 1,600 wounded, mostly Han Chinese. About 1,000 people, mostly Uighurs, have been detained in an ensuing government crackdown.
Credit: South China Morning Post website, Hong Kong, in English 8 Oct 09
South China Morning Post website, Hong Kong, in English 8 Oct 09/BBC Monitoring/(c) BBC