Uygurs doubt Xinjiang militants had any role in Tiananmen Square attack
Militants from Xinjiang linked by security officials to last week's Tiananmen incident
Uygurs in China have questioned the central government's claim that a militant separatist group drawn from the Muslim minority was responsible for last week's suspected terrorist attack in Tiananmen Square.
Uygurs interviewed said they doubted that the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) had the capacity or support to pull off even a crude attack like the fiery car crash that killed two tourists and three suspected Uygur attackers.
An ethnic Uygur scholar in Urumqi , who requested anonymity, said the ETIM had been greatly weakened by the Nato invasion of Afghanistan, which interrupted its ties to the Taliban. He said the group was not well organised enough to conduct an attack more than 2,000 kilometres from the Uygur areas in Xinjiang.
"Today's ETIM has very little influence, although it may still have some spiritual influence to some Uygurs in southern Xinjiang, especially among the poor population," he said.
On Thursday, the country's security chief, Meng Jianzhu, said the ETIM was behind the "premeditated" attack. Authorities had arrested five suspects in connection with the incident, all Uygurs from Xinjiang.
But a Uygur social-science student in Shanghai who has studied social issues in Xinjiang said people there had been largely cut off from the ETIM after the US designated its members for anti-terrorism sanctions after September 11, 2001.
