dogu-turkistan-sempozyumu

FREEEAST TURKISTAN SYMPOSIUMThe leader of the cell, and its oldest member, was Ablimit Celil. As a teenager in the1980s, Ablimit had been arrested and imprisoned for stealing a Kalashnikov rifle frompolice headquarters in his home town of Hotan. In prison, he came under the influenceof a Uighur imam who developed both his Islamic faith and hatred of the ruling Han.Later Ablimit joined an underground group which bombed train lines, office blocksand other “soft” targets in Xinjiang. He took part in the Baren riot of April 1990 andfled into the Kunlun mountains alongside hundreds of other activists as Chinese troopspoured in. Many of these activists, as well as villagers sympathetic to the separatistcause, were subsequently rounded up and imprisoned. However, Ablimit evaded captureand, two years later, planted a bomb on an Urumqi bus packed with Han revelerscelebrating the Chinese New Year. Six people were killed when the device exploded. In1997 he had been responsible for the deaths of eight soldiers and four catering staff atan army attacks in Turpan when a bomb he had planted in a storage cupboard blew upduring the evening meal.Shortly before 9/11, Ablimit Celil made the first of two journeys to an al-Qaedatraining camp in the Pamir mountains of Tajikistan. A more devout Muslim than theother members of the cell, he managed to obtain permission to undertake the Haj, and itwas in Mecca that he was recruited as an agent for the CIA by Josh Pinnegar, who wasposing as an American newspaper reporter.The cell was unusual in that its four members were deliberately kept apart. Ablimit,a widower, lived in Urumqi where he worked as a doorman at a five-star hotel cateringto foreigners and rich Chinese businessmen. Whenever he visited the city, Miles alwaysstayed at the hotel and was able to communicate with Ablimit simply by passing himmessages in the form of tips. Typically, these would be written on Chinese and Americanbanknotes using inks visible only under ultra-violet light. Shortly after the Madridbombings of March 2004, Ablimit informed Miles that he was keen to move with Memetto Shanghai and to team up with Abdul Bary and Ansary Tursun. The atmospherebetween Hans and Uighurs in Urumqi had deteriorated dramatically. September 11 thhad handed the Chinese authorities carte blanche to clamp down on the minority Muslimpopulation and to treat them with a previously unimaginable contempt. Informers nowoperated at every level of society. Black-clad anti-terrorist police roamed the streets.Where once Han and Uighurs had lived contentedly side by side, the two ethnic groupswere now divided by fear and mutual suspicion. Passports belonging to thousands450