A group calling itself the Turkestan Islamic Party claimed responsibility for the attacks in China's Xinjiang region in July, a security intelligence Web site said.

The attacks in the cities of Kashgar and Hotan left around 30 people dead. Chinese authorities immediately called for a crackdown by police on what they considered suspicious activities, including some religious ceremonies.

Kashgar, a city of 350,000 in the western part of the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region and close to the border with Tajikistan, was rocked by several explosions and the killing of bystanders by two men who hijacked a truck after killing its driver.

About 18 people died when a police station was attacked by rioters in Hotan.

An Internet monitoring site run by U.S. security firm SITE said the militant Islamic group released a video saying it was behind the Kashgar attacks.

The video reportedly shows the leader of the Turkestan Islamic Party, Abdul Shakoor Damla, saying his group carried out the attacks.

After the attacks, Kashgar city officials blamed militants from Pakistan for the violence in the region, which is predominantly Muslim and, similar to Tibet, is politically sensitive for the central government.

Beijing is constantly on its guard against separatist groups it claims foment disorder in hopes of establishing an independent East Turkestan, including the Turkestan Islamic Party, based in North Waziristan in Pakistan.

Around 8 million Uighur live in Xinjiang and many say they are unhappy about the large influx of Han Chinese settlers, whom the Uighurs say increasingly marginalize their interests and culture.

Tensions in the region have remained high since nearly 200 people died in clashes that rocked Urumqi, the capital of the region, in July 2009. More than 1,700 people were injured in the riots that stretched across several days.

Local government officials blamed the Urumqi riots on unemployed Uighur migrants living in nearly 50 shantytowns across the city. Beijing also said the riots were planned abroad by the World Uighur Congress, which they say is a terrorist organization and whose president, Rebiya Kadeer, 63, who is also considered a terrorist by the Chinese.

The Turkestan Islamic Party, also known as the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, was founded in 1993 by two men from Hotan. The organization has operated with varying strength and support since but gained momentum after the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

It had operated out of bases in Afghanistan but reportedly fled during the allied invasion.

Its existence continues to be disruptive to relations between China and Pakistan.

earlier related report
China blasts West's anti-terrorism 'double standards'
Beijing (AFP) Sept 9, 2011 - China's state media on Friday accused Western countries of "double standards" in their fight against terrorism, ahead of the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

The comment piece by the official Xinhua news agency blamed Washington in particular for turning a "blind eye" to the damage caused by extremists in Russia's Chechnya and in China's own far-western region of Xinjiang.

Nearly 10 years after 9/11, Xinhua said the fight against terror was "far from over", with terrorists changing tactics and increasing "collaboration with separatists and religious extremists".

"A bigger challenge to the world's anti-terror effort, though, is a lack of a common standard," the comment said.

"In particular, the United States and its Western allies have repeatedly used double standards on anti-terror issues, which have obstructed the progress of the global effort."

Xinhua pointed to the United States' refusal in 2009 to extradite back to China members of its mainly Muslim Uighur minority held at US military prison camp Guantanamo Bay -- who were cleared of wrongdoing -- as an example of double standards.

The United States refused to repatriate the Uighurs on the basis they would face almost certain persecution.

Uighurs populate the Xinjiang region, which has experienced several outbreaks of ethnic violence in recent years -- much of which Beijing has blamed on extremism, separatism and terrorism.

But some experts doubt that terrorist cells operate there, and say the violence stems more from long-standing resentment against the government among Uighurs in the region.

Xinhua also accused Western countries of using counter-terrorism as a "cheap excuse" to intervene in other nations' internal affairs.

"Obviously, such a double standard can only harm the global anti-terror effort," it said.

Foreign ministry spokesman Liu Weimin, meanwhile, told reporters Friday that terrorism "has not been eliminated and severe challenges still exist".

"We believe it is imperative to make greater efforts on development issues such as improving people's livelihood, eradicating poverty and injustice, facilitating dialogue between civilisations and religious tolerance so as to remove the root cause of terrorism," he said.

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