China issues security alert after al-Qaeda threat

Agence France-Presse . Urumqi, China

China issued a security alert Wednesday to its citizens in Algeria after al-Qaeda reportedly vowed to avenge the deaths of Muslims killed during ethnic unrest in this northwestern Chinese city.
The warning came as China raised the death toll from violence on July 5 in Urumqi by eight to 192, in what was the worst ethnic violence in the country in decades.
A hefty police presence remained in the capital of the Xinjiang region on Wednesday, allowing more businesses and shops to re-open, but ethnic tensions continued to simmer.
In Algiers, China’s embassy called on its citizens to be wary of any threats.
‘The Chinese Embassy in Algeria is specially calling on Chinese-funded organisations and personnel to raise their security awareness and strengthen security measures,’ the embassy said in a statement on its web site.
The statement said tougher security measures should be taken ‘in view of the situation following the violent criminal incident in Urumqi on July 5’ and that any ‘emergency matter’ should be reported to the embassy immediately.
London-based risk analysis firm Stirling Assynt said in a report issued Tuesday that an al-Qaeda affiliate had vowed to avenge the deaths of Muslim Uighurs killed in Xinjiang by targeting Chinese workers in north Africa.
The call came from al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the report said. It was the first time Osama bin Laden’s network has directly threatened China or its interests, it noted.
Hundreds of thousands of Chinese work in the Middle East and North Africa, including 50,000 in Algeria, the report said.
The state-run China Daily carried a front-page article on Wednesday publicising the embassy statement and reported that China’s diplomatic mission in Tunisia was working on contingency plans following the al-Qaeda warning.
Foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang said Tuesday that Beijing would ‘take all necessary measures to ensure the safety of overseas Chinese institutions and people.’
Before the latest update of the number of people killed from the official Xinhua news agency, Chinese authorities had said unrest in Urumqi on July 5 left 184 people dead.