return'By K J M Varma Beijing, Jan 12 (PTI) China has beefed up border securityin the volatile Uyghur Muslim-majority Xinjiang province tocounter terrorists returning from Syria following the defeatof the Islamic State terror group, a military officer said.
China has deployed large number of security forces inXinjiang bordering Afghanistan, Pakistan-occupied Kashmir andKyrgyzstan to deal with the separatist East Turkistan IslamicMovement (ETIM) which was blamed for a host of violent attacksin the province and other parts of China in the past fewyears.
A number of Uyghur youth reported to have joined the ISin Syria to undergo training and China apprehends that theywould return to stage attacks in Xinjiang.
Up to 5,000 ethnic Uyghurs from Xinjiang were fighting inSyria, Syria's ambassador in Beijing, Imad Moustapha wasquoted as saying last year.
"The control and management of immigration at borderareas here has been strengthened in recent years," said amilitary officer of border defence in Xinjiang's Kashgarprefecture.
Guard rails have been set up along the border to avoidterrorists sneaking into China, the officer was quoted assaying by the state-run Global Times.
Also China has reported to have plans to set up a counterterrorism centre in Afghanistan to deal with return of Uygurmilitants but the Chinese Foreign Ministry declined to confirmit.
"I have not heard of the information mentioned by you,"Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said here yesterdaywhen asked about the proposal to set up the centre.
During the past few years China has also been pressingPakistan to launch a crackdown on training bases of the ETIMin the tribal areas.
Earlier reports said China and Pakistan border policehave launched joint patrols along the border to preventinfiltration by militants.
China faced a "prominent" risk of a terror attack, saidJi Zhiye, head of the China Institutes of ContemporaryInternational Relations, at an international relations forumin Beijing last month, the Hong Kong-based South China MorningPost reported.
"The number of jihadists captured on China's borders (in2017) was more than 10 times the number from the previousyear," Ji said.
An accurate count of IS jihadists coming to China couldnever be confirmed, said Li Shaoxian, head of the Arabresearch institute at Ningxia University in Northwest China'sNingxia Hui Autonomous Region.
"But the situation has been harsher," Li said.
Many terrorists do not conveniently choose to cross theborder into Northwest China's Xinjiang Uyghur AutonomousRegion, he warned.
"They just fly to cities like Beijing and Shanghai withtheir Chinese passports, posing like any other citizen whocomes back from another country, which makes counter-terrorismwork more difficult," Li said.
China has been trying to monitor and manage the terroristthreat, building an information system and contacts forcounter-terrorism work, Li said.
In September 2017, a division of the People's LiberationArmy in Tumxuk near Kashgar installed 10 special securityscanners at road security checkpoints.
"Counter-terrorism work benefits the whole country andmany European countries under threat of terrorism have alsostrengthened immigration monitoring and management," Li said.
"It was therefore irrational for some western media orcountries to misinterpret China's counter-terrorism efforts,"he said.
In March 2015, Zhang Chunxian, then party chief ofXinjiang, said authorities had broken up terror groupsplotting violent attacks on Chinese soil after fighting inbattles in Syria with IS.
Xinjiang passed its own version of the counter-terrorismlaw in August 2016. The law is a supplement to the nationalcounter-terrorism law approved in December 2015 to defineterrorist activities and the corresponding punishment.
The law added provisions, including one which statesleaders of extremist groups will be placed in solitaryconfinement and another that recruiting people for terroristactivities would be considered an act of terrorism. PTI KJVUZM.
This is unedited, unformatted feed from the Press Trust of India wire.