China names Islamic group as 'supporter' of Tiananmen attack'

BEIJING: The East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) was a "behind-the-scenes" supporter of this week's attack on Beijing's Tiananmen Square, China's top security official Meng Jianzhu said.

"Its behind-the-scenes supporters were the terrorist group the East
Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) based in central and west Asia," Meng said when asked about the Tiananmen incident on a visit to Tashkent in Uzbekistan, video posted online Thursday showed.

A high-profile car crash on Monday killed two tourists and injured dozens at the popular site and symbolic heart of the Chinese state, with the three people in the car -- a man, his wife and his mother -- all dying, police say.

Beijing police said the vehicle had a licence plate from Xinjiang, the far western region where China's mostly Muslim Uighur minority is concentrated, while the three people inside the car and five arrested suspects have Uighur-sounding names.

ETIM -- which is classed by both the United Nations and the United States as a terrorist group -- is known as a militant Islamic separatist organisation that seeks an independent state in Xinjiang.

But ETIM's strength and links to global terrorism are murky, and some
experts say China exaggerates its threat to justify tough security measures in Xinjiang, which has seen sporadic ethnic clashes and anti-government sentiment.