04-20-2007, 08:38 AM
Pak terror camps: China always knew
Saibal Dasgupta
[ 20 Apr, 2007 0222hrs ISTTIMES NEWS NETWORK ]
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BEIJING: China has accused Pakistan of training Islamic terrorists on its soil.
It now turns out that the Chinese government had known about camps in Pakistan for a long time but chose to publicly keep quite about it for diplomatic reasons.
Last January, the Chinese police killed 18 "terrorists" and arrested 17 others on the Chinese side of the Pamir plateau, which extends to Pakistan.
India's lobbying with China on the issue of Pakistani involvement in terrorism and Shaukat Aziz's attempt to overuse the "separatism card" to extract economic benefits may have prompted the government to expose Pakistan's counter-terrorism credentials, sources said.
The revelations are part of the government's case against Huseyin Celil, a China-born Uygur-Canadian, who was sentenced to life imprisonment by a court in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang.
The court held him guilty of "taking part in terrorist activities and plotting to split the country".
Celil has been accused of recruiting several people for East Turkistan Liberation Organisation and sending them to training camps on the Pamir plateau in Pakistan.
Saibal Dasgupta
[ 20 Apr, 2007 0222hrs ISTTIMES NEWS NETWORK ]
RSS Feeds| SMS NEWS to 8888 for latest updates
BEIJING: China has accused Pakistan of training Islamic terrorists on its soil.
It now turns out that the Chinese government had known about camps in Pakistan for a long time but chose to publicly keep quite about it for diplomatic reasons.
Last January, the Chinese police killed 18 "terrorists" and arrested 17 others on the Chinese side of the Pamir plateau, which extends to Pakistan.
India's lobbying with China on the issue of Pakistani involvement in terrorism and Shaukat Aziz's attempt to overuse the "separatism card" to extract economic benefits may have prompted the government to expose Pakistan's counter-terrorism credentials, sources said.
The revelations are part of the government's case against Huseyin Celil, a China-born Uygur-Canadian, who was sentenced to life imprisonment by a court in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang.
The court held him guilty of "taking part in terrorist activities and plotting to split the country".
Celil has been accused of recruiting several people for East Turkistan Liberation Organisation and sending them to training camps on the Pamir plateau in Pakistan.