2011 Hotan attack
Encyclopedia
The 2011 Hotan attack was a series of coordinated bomb and knife attacks that occurred in Hotan, Xinjiang
, China on July 18, 2011. According to witnesses, the assailants were a group of 18 young Uyghur
men who opposed the local government's campaign against the full-face Islamic veil, which had grown popular among older Hotan women in 2009 but were also used in a series of violent crimes. The men occupied a police station on Nuerbage Street at noon, killing two security guards with knives and bombs and taking eight hostages. The attackers then yelled religious slogans, including ones associated with Jihadism
, as they replaced the Chinese flag
on top of a police station with another flag, the identity of which is disputed.
After a firefight with police around 1:30 p.m, 14 of the attackers were killed, and four were detained. Six of the hostages were rescued alive, while two were killed in the attack. Local and national government say the attack was organized terrorism motivated by religious extremism, and found that two of the attackers have links to the militant East Turkestan Islamic Movement
(ETIM). A group of pro-independence Uyghurs in Germany said the attack was preceded by the violent suppression of a nonviolent protest two hours earlier. The incidence of such a protest could not be independently confirmed. A team from China's counter-terrorism office was sent to Hotan to investigate the attack. ETIM acknowledged responsibility for the attack on September 8, as well as for the attacks in Kashgar later that same July. Six men were given prison or death sentences for their involvement in both attacks later in September.
, so it is a frequent source of migrant worker
s to wealthier Xinjiang cities like Ürümqi
. Uyghurs tend to have less wealth than their Han counterparts; as a result, many Uyghurs are unemployed and subsist on Chinese social welfare benefits. The city receives few domestic tourists because of terrorism fears, but southern Xinjiang officials are trying to integrate the region into the international economy by creating a special economic zone in nearby Kashgar
. Hotan had recently been celebrating the opening of the city's first passenger-train service in June.
Xinjiang has been experiencing an Islamic revival
, manifest in decreased alcohol consumption and increased beard length
in Hotan. Most visibly, since the July 2009 Ürümqi riots, religious older Hotan women wore a long face-concealing Islamic garment, which is more similar to the uniform of the female Chechen suicide bomber
than to traditional Uyghur attire. Authorities became concerned with the fashion trend after a spate of murders and robberies outside Hotan where the perpetrators wore face-conceiling veils, so they ineffectively campaigned to discourage women from wearing the veils, using slogans such as "show off your pretty looks and let your beautiful long hair fly". Uyghur separatist attacks usually take the form of IED
s and vehicle-borne bombs in heavily-policed areas. Compared to the 1990s, such bombings from 2000 onward have tended to claim civilian as well as traditional police and bureaucrat targets.
on July 16, two days before the attack; they brought "several dozen different knives including cleavers
, axes and switchblade
s" with them. The men, Uyghurs
between the age of 20 and 35, prepared for the attack at the local bazaar
, buying materials to create explosives. The attack was executed on July 18th, around the Iktar Grand Bazaar
in the center of Hotan, when the group entered a government building and took several hostages. According to witnesses, the men approached the gates of the Nuerbage (Naarburg) Street police station around noon with weapons concealed in cardboard boxes, stabbing a Uyghur security guard to death when they got close enough. The guard, Memet Eli, was 25 years old and engaged to be married in September. After killing Eli, the men shouted slogans in Uyghur
denouncing the government's campaign against the Islamic veil, in what onlookers described as Kashgar and Aksu accents. Variously described as "terrorists", "rioters", or "thugs" in accounts, the men proceeded to storm the police building wielding molotov cocktail
s, knives, and grenade
s. Shouting jihadist
slogans such as "Allah is the only god
!" and "Holy war!" they broke into the police station, wherein they took police hostages, smashed computer hardware and furniture, and set fires. Two Uyghur women submitting forms inside the police office were trapped inside a smoky room before being rescued through the windows by street vendors.
Nuerbage police station chief Abulaiti Maitiniyazi (Ablet Metniyaz) was a witness to the attack. He recalled shouting to the men in Uyghur for a peaceful settlement, but receiving molotov cocktails and rocks in return. Maitiniyazi's squad then opened fire on the attackers, and one Han paramilitary officer belongs to people's armed police force was killed by a molotov cocktail when his squad entering ground level by force. The men proceeded to take down the Chinese flag
atop the police station to put up another flag, with conflicting reports about the new flag's design. The government says the flag was black with white arabic lettering: the Black Standard
commonly known as the "black flag of jihad". Residents interviewed by the Financial Times
say it was the "blue half-moon flag
" used by Xinjiang independence advocates, while a resident quoted in the South China Morning Post
said it was black with a crescent. According to Maitiniyazi, it was when the attackers were hacking at the civilian hostages' face, nose and ears with knives with intent to kill that police shot 14 of the assailants to death and captured the other four for questioning, ending the attack within 90 minutes of the initial break-in. Six of the eight hostages were rescued alive, while two Han women hostages were hacked to death during the operation, and four Uyghurs were hospitalized for non-life threatening injuries.
said that the attack aimed to create fear in the public. On July 19th, a spokesperson for China's Ministry of Public Security
announced that two of the 18 attackers had links to ETIM. Citing the deaths of Uyghur civilians in the attack, a government spokesperson said that the attack was apparently not ethnically motivated. But the environment in the city after the attack bore signs of ethnic tension. Many Han
residents of the city feared for their lives, recalling a spate recent violent crimes against Han people by Uyghurs in Hotan. Many businesses owned by Han shut down, and both local and visiting Han are said to have "almost disappeared in the Uygur-dominated areas". On August 13, the elite counterterrorist Snow Leopard Commando Unit was deployed to Hotan and Kashgar to secure the cities ahead of the China-Eurasia Expo
in September.
The anti-China pro-Uyghur independence World Uyghur Congress
(WUC) in Germany said that the cause of the violence was a clash between police and protesters at 10 a.m. about the detentions of young Uyghur men after the 2009 unrest, during which 20 Uyghurs were allegedly killed. However, the Financial Times
interviewed local Han and Uyghur residents, and none of them had any knowledge of a demonstration before the attack. A local government spokesperson also denied that there was a mass protest before the attack. WUC spokesperson Dilxadi Rexiti (迪里夏提, also known as Dilxat Raxi) accused the authorities of lying, rhetorically asking "If the attack was premeditated, why didn't the police take precautions".
Several Indian security analysts claimed that Pakistan
i-based terror groups
were linked to the attack. Both the director of the Institute of Central Asia at the Xinjiang Academy of Social Sciences and Chinese counter-terrorist
expert Li Wei alluded to the influence of foreign terrorist organizations in the attack without mentioning any specific country, which the Times of India claimed referred to Pakistan. However, the Chinese government, which has good relations with Pakistan, and the WUC, which allegedly supports anti-China guerillas operating along the Afghanistan border region, did not give any remarks on the alleged connection to terrorists based in Pakistan. On September 8, the US-based terrorist monitoring group SITE
reported on a video made by ETIM leader Abdul Shakoor Damla claiming responsibility for the July Hotan and Kashgar attacks
on behalf of his group. On September 14, the Xinjiang Legal Daily reported that six men were tried for their involvement in the Hotan and Kashgar attacks. Four were given death sentences, and two were given 19-year jail terms, for charges including "leading and organizing a terror group, manufacturing illegal explosives, intentional homicide, [and] arson". Xinjiang authorities have unveiled a package of policy responses to the attacks to placate Muslim Uyghurs, which include increasing quotas for Uyghur participation in local government and increasing government subsidies for religious schools.
Xinjiang
Xinjiang is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. It is the largest Chinese administrative division and spans over 1.6 million km2...
, China on July 18, 2011. According to witnesses, the assailants were a group of 18 young Uyghur
Uyghur people
The Uyghur are a Turkic ethnic group living in Eastern and Central Asia. Today, Uyghurs live primarily in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in the People's Republic of China...
men who opposed the local government's campaign against the full-face Islamic veil, which had grown popular among older Hotan women in 2009 but were also used in a series of violent crimes. The men occupied a police station on Nuerbage Street at noon, killing two security guards with knives and bombs and taking eight hostages. The attackers then yelled religious slogans, including ones associated with Jihadism
Jihadism
Jihadism is a term to describe the renewed focus on armed jihad in radical Islamic fundamentalism....
, as they replaced the Chinese flag
Flag of the People's Republic of China
The flag of the People's Republic of China is a red field charged in the canton with five golden stars. The design features one large star, with four smaller stars in a semicircle set off towards the fly...
on top of a police station with another flag, the identity of which is disputed.
After a firefight with police around 1:30 p.m, 14 of the attackers were killed, and four were detained. Six of the hostages were rescued alive, while two were killed in the attack. Local and national government say the attack was organized terrorism motivated by religious extremism, and found that two of the attackers have links to the militant East Turkestan Islamic Movement
East Turkestan Islamic Movement
The East Turkestan Islamic Movement The East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) The East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) (also known as the Turkistan Islamic Movement (TIM), and other names; is a Waziri based mujahideen organization. Its stated goals are the independence of East Turkestan and the...
(ETIM). A group of pro-independence Uyghurs in Germany said the attack was preceded by the violent suppression of a nonviolent protest two hours earlier. The incidence of such a protest could not be independently confirmed. A team from China's counter-terrorism office was sent to Hotan to investigate the attack. ETIM acknowledged responsibility for the attack on September 8, as well as for the attacks in Kashgar later that same July. Six men were given prison or death sentences for their involvement in both attacks later in September.
Background
Hotan is a city of 360,000 people, 96% Uyghur and 3% Han, in Hotan Prefecture, China. Hotan Prefecture is a predominantly agricultural county and the poorest in XinjiangXinjiang
Xinjiang is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. It is the largest Chinese administrative division and spans over 1.6 million km2...
, so it is a frequent source of migrant worker
Migrant worker
The term migrant worker has different official meanings and connotations in different parts of the world. The United Nations' definition is broad, including any people working outside of their home country...
s to wealthier Xinjiang cities like Ürümqi
Ürümqi
Ürümqi , formerly Tihwa , is the capital of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China, in the northwest of the country....
. Uyghurs tend to have less wealth than their Han counterparts; as a result, many Uyghurs are unemployed and subsist on Chinese social welfare benefits. The city receives few domestic tourists because of terrorism fears, but southern Xinjiang officials are trying to integrate the region into the international economy by creating a special economic zone in nearby Kashgar
Kashgar
Kashgar or Kashi is an oasis city with approximately 350,000 residents in the western part of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China. Kashgar is the administrative centre of Kashgar Prefecture which has an area of 162,000 km² and a population of approximately...
. Hotan had recently been celebrating the opening of the city's first passenger-train service in June.
Xinjiang has been experiencing an Islamic revival
Islamic revival
Islamic revival refers to a revival of the Islamic religion throughout the Islamic world, that began roughly sometime in 1970s and is manifested in greater religious piety, and community feeling, and in a growing adoption of Islamic culture, dress, terminology, separation of the sexes, and values...
, manifest in decreased alcohol consumption and increased beard length
Islamic hygienical jurisprudence
Hygiene is a prominent topic in Islam. Islam has always placed a strong emphasis on personal hygiene. Other than the need to be ritually clean in time for the daily prayer through Wudu and Ghusl, there are a large number of other hygiene-related rules governing the lives of Muslims...
in Hotan. Most visibly, since the July 2009 Ürümqi riots, religious older Hotan women wore a long face-concealing Islamic garment, which is more similar to the uniform of the female Chechen suicide bomber
Shahidka
Shahidka |shahid]]), sometimes called "Black Widow", is a term for Islamist Chechen female suicide bombers, who made themselves known at the Moscow theater hostage crisis of October 2002...
than to traditional Uyghur attire. Authorities became concerned with the fashion trend after a spate of murders and robberies outside Hotan where the perpetrators wore face-conceiling veils, so they ineffectively campaigned to discourage women from wearing the veils, using slogans such as "show off your pretty looks and let your beautiful long hair fly". Uyghur separatist attacks usually take the form of IED
Improvised explosive device
An improvised explosive device , also known as a roadside bomb, is a homemade bomb constructed and deployed in ways other than in conventional military action...
s and vehicle-borne bombs in heavily-policed areas. Compared to the 1990s, such bombings from 2000 onward have tended to claim civilian as well as traditional police and bureaucrat targets.
Attack
According to a subsequent investigation, a group of 18 antigovernment "religious extremists" arrived in Hotan from KashgarKashgar
Kashgar or Kashi is an oasis city with approximately 350,000 residents in the western part of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China. Kashgar is the administrative centre of Kashgar Prefecture which has an area of 162,000 km² and a population of approximately...
on July 16, two days before the attack; they brought "several dozen different knives including cleavers
Cleaver (knife)
A cleaver is a large knife that varies in its shape but usually resembles a rectangular-bladed hatchet. It is used mostly for hacking through bones as a kitchen knife or butcher knife, and can also be used for crushing via its broad side, typically garlic....
, axes and switchblade
Switchblade
A switchblade is a type of knife with a folding or sliding blade contained in the handle which is opened automatically by a spring when a button, lever, or switch on the handle or bolster is activated A switchblade (also known as an automatic knife, pushbutton knife, switch, Sprenger, Springer,...
s" with them. The men, Uyghurs
Uyghur people
The Uyghur are a Turkic ethnic group living in Eastern and Central Asia. Today, Uyghurs live primarily in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in the People's Republic of China...
between the age of 20 and 35, prepared for the attack at the local bazaar
Bazaar
A bazaar , Cypriot Greek: pantopoula) is a permanent merchandising area, marketplace, or street of shops where goods and services are exchanged or sold. The term is sometimes also used to refer to the "network of merchants, bankers and craftsmen" who work that area...
, buying materials to create explosives. The attack was executed on July 18th, around the Iktar Grand Bazaar
Grand Bazaar
Grand Bazaar may refer to:* Grand Bazaar, Esfahan* Grand Bazaar, Istanbul* Grand Bazaar, Kashgar* Grand Bazaar, Tehran* Grand Bazaar, Ürümqi...
in the center of Hotan, when the group entered a government building and took several hostages. According to witnesses, the men approached the gates of the Nuerbage (Naarburg) Street police station around noon with weapons concealed in cardboard boxes, stabbing a Uyghur security guard to death when they got close enough. The guard, Memet Eli, was 25 years old and engaged to be married in September. After killing Eli, the men shouted slogans in Uyghur
Uyghur language
Uyghur , formerly known as Eastern Turk, is a Turkic language with 8 to 11 million speakers, spoken primarily by the Uyghur people in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of Western China. Significant communities of Uyghur-speakers are located in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, and various other...
denouncing the government's campaign against the Islamic veil, in what onlookers described as Kashgar and Aksu accents. Variously described as "terrorists", "rioters", or "thugs" in accounts, the men proceeded to storm the police building wielding molotov cocktail
Molotov cocktail
The Molotov cocktail, also known as the petrol bomb, gasoline bomb, Molotov bomb, fire bottle, fire bomb, or simply Molotov, is a generic name used for a variety of improvised incendiary weapons...
s, knives, and grenade
Grenade
A grenade is a small explosive device that is projected a safe distance away by its user. Soldiers called grenadiers specialize in the use of grenades. The term hand grenade refers any grenade designed to be hand thrown. Grenade Launchers are firearms designed to fire explosive projectile grenades...
s. Shouting jihadist
Jihadism
Jihadism is a term to describe the renewed focus on armed jihad in radical Islamic fundamentalism....
slogans such as "Allah is the only god
Shahada
The Shahada , means "to know and believe without suspicion, as if witnessed"/testification; it is the name of the Islamic creed. The shahada is the Muslim declaration of belief in the oneness of God and acceptance of Muhammad as God's prophet...
!" and "Holy war!" they broke into the police station, wherein they took police hostages, smashed computer hardware and furniture, and set fires. Two Uyghur women submitting forms inside the police office were trapped inside a smoky room before being rescued through the windows by street vendors.
Nuerbage police station chief Abulaiti Maitiniyazi (Ablet Metniyaz) was a witness to the attack. He recalled shouting to the men in Uyghur for a peaceful settlement, but receiving molotov cocktails and rocks in return. Maitiniyazi's squad then opened fire on the attackers, and one Han paramilitary officer belongs to people's armed police force was killed by a molotov cocktail when his squad entering ground level by force. The men proceeded to take down the Chinese flag
Flag of the People's Republic of China
The flag of the People's Republic of China is a red field charged in the canton with five golden stars. The design features one large star, with four smaller stars in a semicircle set off towards the fly...
atop the police station to put up another flag, with conflicting reports about the new flag's design. The government says the flag was black with white arabic lettering: the Black Standard
Black Standard
The Black Banner or Black Standard is the historical flag flown by Muhammad in Islamic tradition, an eschatological symbol in Shi'a Islam , and a symbol used in Islamic extremism and Jihadism.-History:...
commonly known as the "black flag of jihad". Residents interviewed by the Financial Times
Financial Times
The Financial Times is an international business newspaper. It is a morning daily newspaper published in London and printed in 24 cities around the world. Its primary rival is the Wall Street Journal, published in New York City....
say it was the "blue half-moon flag
Flag of East Turkestan
The flag of East Turkistan, called Kök Bayraq was adopted on November 12, 1933. It is a symbol of the East Turkestan independence movement....
" used by Xinjiang independence advocates, while a resident quoted in the South China Morning Post
South China Morning Post
The South China Morning Post , together with its Sunday edition, the Sunday Morning Post, is an English-language Hong Kong newspaper, published by the SCMP Group with a circulation of 104,000....
said it was black with a crescent. According to Maitiniyazi, it was when the attackers were hacking at the civilian hostages' face, nose and ears with knives with intent to kill that police shot 14 of the assailants to death and captured the other four for questioning, ending the attack within 90 minutes of the initial break-in. Six of the eight hostages were rescued alive, while two Han women hostages were hacked to death during the operation, and four Uyghurs were hospitalized for non-life threatening injuries.
Reaction
The Xinjiang regional government called the incident an organized, "long-planned" "terrorist attack", and a team from China's national counter-terrorism office was sent to Hotan to investigate the causes of the violence. Media called it "one of the most serious eruptions of violence" since the July 2009 Ürümqi riots. An expert at the China Institutes of Contemporary International RelationsChina Institutes of Contemporary International Relations
The China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations is among China’s largest and oldest civilian research institutions for international studies...
said that the attack aimed to create fear in the public. On July 19th, a spokesperson for China's Ministry of Public Security
Ministry of Public Security of the People's Republic of China
The Ministry of Public Security , is the principal police and security authority of the mainland of the People's Republic of China and the government agency that exercises oversight over and is ultimately responsible for day-to-day law enforcement...
announced that two of the 18 attackers had links to ETIM. Citing the deaths of Uyghur civilians in the attack, a government spokesperson said that the attack was apparently not ethnically motivated. But the environment in the city after the attack bore signs of ethnic tension. Many Han
Han Chinese
Han Chinese are an ethnic group native to China and are the largest single ethnic group in the world.Han Chinese constitute about 92% of the population of the People's Republic of China , 98% of the population of the Republic of China , 78% of the population of Singapore, and about 20% of the...
residents of the city feared for their lives, recalling a spate recent violent crimes against Han people by Uyghurs in Hotan. Many businesses owned by Han shut down, and both local and visiting Han are said to have "almost disappeared in the Uygur-dominated areas". On August 13, the elite counterterrorist Snow Leopard Commando Unit was deployed to Hotan and Kashgar to secure the cities ahead of the China-Eurasia Expo
China-Eurasia Expo
The China-Eurasia Expo is an exposition for commercial, cultural and ministerial activities among Asian and European countries.-History:...
in September.
The anti-China pro-Uyghur independence World Uyghur Congress
World Uyghur Congress
The World Uyghur Congress is an international organisation of exiled Uyghur groups said to "represent the collective interest of the Uyghur people" both inside and outside of the Xinjiang Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China...
(WUC) in Germany said that the cause of the violence was a clash between police and protesters at 10 a.m. about the detentions of young Uyghur men after the 2009 unrest, during which 20 Uyghurs were allegedly killed. However, the Financial Times
Financial Times
The Financial Times is an international business newspaper. It is a morning daily newspaper published in London and printed in 24 cities around the world. Its primary rival is the Wall Street Journal, published in New York City....
interviewed local Han and Uyghur residents, and none of them had any knowledge of a demonstration before the attack. A local government spokesperson also denied that there was a mass protest before the attack. WUC spokesperson Dilxadi Rexiti (迪里夏提, also known as Dilxat Raxi) accused the authorities of lying, rhetorically asking "If the attack was premeditated, why didn't the police take precautions".
Several Indian security analysts claimed that Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
i-based terror groups
Terrorism in Pakistan
Terrorism in Pakistan has become a major and highly destructive phenomenon in recent years. The annual death toll from terrorist attacks has risen from 164 in 2003 to 3318 in 2009, with a total of 35,000 Pakistanis killed as of 2010. According to the government of Pakistan, the direct and indirect...
were linked to the attack. Both the director of the Institute of Central Asia at the Xinjiang Academy of Social Sciences and Chinese counter-terrorist
Counter-terrorism
Counter-terrorism is the practices, tactics, techniques, and strategies that governments, militaries, police departments and corporations adopt to prevent or in response to terrorist threats and/or acts, both real and imputed.The tactic of terrorism is available to insurgents and governments...
expert Li Wei alluded to the influence of foreign terrorist organizations in the attack without mentioning any specific country, which the Times of India claimed referred to Pakistan. However, the Chinese government, which has good relations with Pakistan, and the WUC, which allegedly supports anti-China guerillas operating along the Afghanistan border region, did not give any remarks on the alleged connection to terrorists based in Pakistan. On September 8, the US-based terrorist monitoring group SITE
SITE Institute
The Search for International Terrorist Entities Intelligence Group is an organization that tracks the online activity of terrorist organizations. The SITE Institute was founded in 2002 by Rita Katz and Josh Devon, who had left the Investigative Project...
reported on a video made by ETIM leader Abdul Shakoor Damla claiming responsibility for the July Hotan and Kashgar attacks
2011 Kashgar attacks
The 2011 Kashgar attacks were a series of knife and bomb attacks in Kashgar, Xinjiang, China on July 30 and 31, 2011. On July 30, two Uyghur men hijacked a truck, killed its driver, and drove into a crowd of pedestrians. They got out of the truck and stabbed six people to death and injured 27...
on behalf of his group. On September 14, the Xinjiang Legal Daily reported that six men were tried for their involvement in the Hotan and Kashgar attacks. Four were given death sentences, and two were given 19-year jail terms, for charges including "leading and organizing a terror group, manufacturing illegal explosives, intentional homicide, [and] arson". Xinjiang authorities have unveiled a package of policy responses to the attacks to placate Muslim Uyghurs, which include increasing quotas for Uyghur participation in local government and increasing government subsidies for religious schools.