World Should See Knife-wielding Killers as Terrorists, China Says

The Globe and Mail (Canada)

04 March 2014

BEIJING — Terrorists such as the knife-wielding assassins who struck a Chinese railway station are the “common enemy of all mankind,” China’s Foreign Ministry said Monday in a reproach to countries whose expressions of condolences omitted any reference to terror.
The gang of black-clad attackers who killed 29 and injured 143 others in Kunming, a city deep in China’s southwest, are “devoid of conscience and humanity,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said in Beijing.

He added: “We believe that when dealing with violent terrorists like that, the international community should speak with one voice and take joint action.”

… Those who study terrorism said the co-ordination of the attack showed a new level of sophistication. Rohan Gunaratna, who leads the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research in Singapore, said it is likely the attackers have ties to, or drew inspiration from, the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, a radical Islamic Uyghur secessionist group. The ETIM has been listed by the U.S. State Department as a “group of concern.”

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