|
China says deadly bus blasts, Olympics not linked
2008-07-22
BEIJING (AFP) - China said Tuesday that no evidence of an Olympic terror link had been found in a pair of bus explosions that killed two people in a southwestern city. The mysterious blasts on Monday in Kunming have added to security tensions ahead of next month's Olympics because they followed repeated government warnings that terrorists were planning to attack the Beijing Games. Authorities have provided few details about the explosions, other than a police statement saying they were set off deliberately and were an act of "sabotage". But the foreign ministry said Tuesday it appeared there was no direct link between the blasts and the Games. "We have not found evidence of a link to the Olympics but we will continue to make efforts to find out the truth," ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao told reporters in Beijing, providing no other details. In a later press conference in Kunming, the city's top police official Du Min added that there was no indication of involvement by terrorist groups or forces seeking Tibetan independence, according to state media reports. China has previously said Muslims in the nation's far northwest Xinjiang region were planning attacks on the Olympics. It also has warned of a possibly security threat from Buddhists in Tibet, where Beijing has cracked down on anti-Chinese violence that erupted in March. "The Beijing Olympics is facing a terrorist threat unsurpassed in Olympic history," the Communist Party mouthpiece, the People's Daily, said in a recent editorial that referred to Xinjiang and Tibet security concerns. However rights groups have accused the government of exaggerating or fabricating the threat as an excuse to silence dissent in the two regions, where many complain about repressive Chinese rule. Meanwhile, Kunming, the capital of mountainous Yunnan province located 2,100 kilometres (1,300 miles) southwest of Beijing, remained tense on Tuesday, state media reported. The China Daily newspaper said police had beefed up security at airports and highways in the city after the blasts, which also left 14 people injured, one of them a woman in critical condition. In scant other details released by Kunming police on Tuesday, they said ammonium nitrate had been used in the blasts. Ammonium nitrate is a substance found in some fertilisers but also can be used to make explosives. The Kunming police statement went on to urge anyone who was near the two blast sites on Monday to come forward with information that could help police crack the case. The state-run Xinhua news agency reported that any information that helped solve the case could earn the provider a reward of 100,000 yuan (14,300 dollars).
| 
