China Drops a Surprise Accusation

Chinese officials let loose a surprise today, saying they've rolled up a terrorist plot to undermine this summer's Olympic Games with suicide bombings and kidnappings of foreign journalists, athletes and other visitors. The plot was allegedly being hatched by ethnic Uighur separatists from Xinjiang in China's far west, who have agitated for independence and protested what they call Chinese wiping out of their culture. Details and a video report here. Authorities gave no other details, and the timing and nature of the announcement make one wonder if it could be a diversionary tactic to distract attention from the chaotic and protest-ridden running of the Olympic torch relay, disrupted by pro-Tibet demonstrators. The news of shutting down the Uighur plot conveniently seems to lend justification for the commando-like Chinese security detail following the torch in London, Paris and San Francisco. Yet China doesn't have a pattern of suicide bombings, and aside from a few abductions of foreigners for ransom in some of China's wilder southern regions, you don't hear about kidnappings as a political tactic. China has recently accused followers of Tibet's Dalai Lama of plotting suicide bombings inside China, but that also isn't a tactic with much known history, if any.