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Afghan Minister Backs Chinese Claims of Militants' Links to bin Laden
Wednesday, January 23, 2002
(2:37 PM ET)
By John Leicester
The Associated Press

Beijing acted with unusual swiftness to re-establish a presence in the Afghan capital after the Taliban collapsed, sending diplomats to Kabul to contact Afghan officials and inspect the site of China's embassy that it closed amid factional fighting in 1993.

BEIJING -- AP
Backing Beijing's claims, the Afghan foreign minister said Wednesday there was "no doubt" that Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network had links with militants accused of terrorism in China's troubled western Muslim region of Xinjiang.

Foreign Minister Abdullah, accompanying Afghanistan's interim leader Hamid Karzai on a visit to Beijing, did not rule out the possibility that his government might repatriate any captured suspected Chinese terrorists to face justice at home.

"There is no doubt about it. People, terrorist groups from Xinjiang province, were operating in Afghanistan under the command of al-Qaida, in close collaboration with al-Qaida networks," Abdullah, who uses just one name, said at a news conference.

Asked if they might be repatriated, Abdullah said: "We will not exclude any type of cooperation. We said that our commitment in the war against terror is full. It includes all terrorists from all over the world, those that want to use the Afghan soil against their own country, their own people."

While Washington has rebuffed a connection, China has tried to portray opponents of Chinese rule in Xinjiang as part of the global terror threat being fought by the U.S.-led coalition.

China has blamed the separatists for occasional bombings and attacks in Xinjiang. This week, China claimed that some separatists were armed, equipped and funded by bin Laden and Afghanistan's former Taliban rulers.
(More: New Jersey Online News Source)
2002 © The Associated Press.

Dan