Pakistan says NW refugees can go home next week

by Sajjad Tarakzai

ISLAMABAD (AFP) – Pakistan said Thursday nearly two million displaced people can start returning home next week, drawing a line under its massive assault against the Taliban in the northwest.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said preparations were being made to send home the hundreds of thousands of people who fled their homes in the Swat valley, claiming that the military had "eliminated" the extremists.

"The displaced people will start going back from July 13. The special support group will finalise the strategy from today and will make a procedure for their return, security and other arrangements," he told a news conference.

"The army will remain in the area for the security of the people and the reconstruction process of the affected areas will start soon."

Soldiers launched an offensive against the Taliban in parts of North West Frontier Province (NWFP) in late April after the fighters moved from Swat into the neighbouring district of Buner, which is further south towards Islamabad.

The offensive sparked a huge evacuation.

Most of the 1.9 million displaced, including about 500,000 who fled an offensive last year elsewhere in the northwest, are packed into relatives' homes, while others are crammed into hot and dusty refugee camps.

Families say they are desperate to return to their cool mountain homes, but have expressed concern that there is still no guarantee of security.

UN humanitarian chief John Holmes, who visited Buner on Thursday, said many people were returning already, but added every effort must be made to ensure that people can rebuild their lives in safety and not flee again.

"People need help to re-establish themselves, to re-establish their livelihoods, to re-start farming. They're going to need some food," he told reporters in the village of Sultanwas, which sustained heavy damage.

"The biggest concerns are that people are able to return and that once they've returned, that return is sustained.

"The worst thing of all if people come back and then suddenly they find it's not safe and have to go back again. That would land us all with a big problem," Holmes added.

Electricity and water supplies were cut off in the main urban hubs during the fighting, hospitals closed their doors, markets shut and witnesses have spoken of significant amounts of damage after the offensive.

Lieutenant General Nadeem Ahmed, the official in charge of Pakistan's emergency response to the displacement crisis, said full security would be provided to ensure the safety of those who went back.

"First the people living in camps will be sent. Then the people living in schools. In the third phase, people living with their relatives in houses and in the final stage, people living outside NWFP," he told Geo television.

"We will provide full security," he added. "We will enroll local young men through community policing and pay them 10,000 rupees (123 US dollars) per month, they will be responsible for law and order in their areas".

Army commanders have been saying for some time that Swat, Buner and neighbouring Lower Dir are almost cleared of Taliban rebels, although fighting continues in several pockets.

The prime minister said soldiers would remain on the ground after people return, but appeared to be drawing a line under major combat operations.

"More than 1,700 militants were killed during the operation. Our soldiers also made sacrifices. Some of them were injured. Some of them were disabled, but they eliminated the extremists," Gilani told reporters.

Death tolls released by Pakistan are impossible to confirm independently because fighting takes place in military zones closed to the media.

Fighter jets Thursday pounded suspected militants, killing at least 12 in the tribal belt of South Waziristan, where commanders have vowed to open a second front against Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud, officials said.

Twelve Taliban militants were killed around Ladha, about 60 kilometres (38 miles) northeast of Wana, the main town of South Waziristan, they said.

Pakistan to begin return of displaced next week

By Zeeshan Haider

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – Pakistan will start bringing people displaced by fighting between security forces and Taliban militants in the northwestern Swat Valley back home from next week, Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani said on Thursday.

About 2 million people have fled their homes since the army began an offensive against the Taliban in their bastion of Swat, a former tourist valley northwest of Islamabad, in late April.

Most of the displaced are living with family or friends in "host communities" and about 280,000 are in tent camps. They and their plight are sensitive issues for a government that critics say is bowing to U.S. pressure to battle the militants.

"The displaced men, women and children will begin returning to their homes with dignity from July 13," Gilani told a news conference.

Government officials say more than 1,700 militants and nearly 160 soldiers have been killed in the fighting, launched two months ago after militant aggression and advances prompted concern over the stability of Pakistan and its nuclear arsenal. Independent casualty estimates are not available.

The United States, grappling with an intensifying Taliban insurgency in neighboring Afghanistan, has welcomed Pakistan's action against the militants.

The army has pushed the militants out of Swat's towns and it controls the main lines of communication, but clashes are flaring daily in some areas.

None of the top militant leaders in the area have been among those killed, leading to fears the fighters could re-emerge. The military said on Wednesday that the Taliban leader in Swat, Fazlullah, had been wounded in an air strike on Monday.

On Thursday, security forces killed "a few" militants and arrested 25 during a mop-up operation in Swat, the military said.

Public backing for the offensive against the Taliban is strong, but some analysts say the government is encouraging people uprooted by fighting to return home because of the risk that a prolonged displacement could undermine that goodwill.

SECURITY WORRIES

However, U.N. Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator John Holmes on Wednesday said Pakistan needed to ensure appropriate conditions, especially security, before encouraging displaced people to go home.

Gilani said the government had restored utilities and infrastructure in Swat and had taken measures to provide security to the people.

But he cautioned that sporadic incidents of violence could not be ruled out in Swat because of the prevailing security situation in the entire country.

Militants have carried out a series of suicide bombings and bomb attacks around the country in retaliation for the Swat offensive.

In the latest such attack, a remote-controlled bomb went off close to a vehicle carrying security forces in the northwestern town of Bannu, wounding six soldiers, police said.

The military is also slowly preparing to mount an all-out assault on South Waziristan, a major militant sanctuary on the Afghan border and power base of Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud.

"Sporadic incidents of terrorism do take place in other parts of the country. So (Swat) is also part of Pakistan and that can also take place there, despite our best ability," Gilani said.

Mine kills five Pakistan soldiers: officials

QUETTA, Pakistan (AFP) – A landmine killed five paramilitary soldiers and wounded four others in Pakistan's insurgency-plagued province of Baluchistan on Thursday, security officials said.

The blast happened in a hilly area home to dozens of coalfields, about 30 kilometres (20 miles) east of Quetta, the capital of the southwestern province that borders Afghanistan and Iran.

"Our vehicle hit a mine, killing five soldiers and injuring four others," a Frontier Corps (FC) official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

"The vehicle was returning to Quetta after delivering food supplies to soldiers stationed in the area," he said.

One of the injured is in a serious condition, he added.

Another security official confirmed the mine blast.

"We have received reports that five FC men were killed and four others injured in the landmine explosion," he said.

Mine explosions are fairly frequent in Baluchistan -- rife with Islamist militancy, sectarian violence and regional insurgency.

Hundreds of people have died since Baluch rebels rose up in 2004, lashing out against the central government, demanding political autonomy and a greater share of profits from the region's wealth of natural resources.

Strife shows ethnic tension China hopes to ignore

By GILLIAN WONG, Associated Press Writer

URUMQI, China – It started with some boys fighting over fireworks. It wound up as a clash between hundreds of villagers from two competing ethnic groups.

Such incidents illustrate the ethnic tension that pervades much of China — and exploded this week in the western region of Xinjiang, taking 156 lives.

The situation is worst in the west, the vast borderlands where Chinese imperial dynasties spilled into traditional homelands of Buddhist Tibetans, Muslim Uighurs, nomadic Mongols and Hui, a Muslim group. But other areas are not immune: The fight over fireworks broke out in February in Henan province in central China, a day's drive from Beijing.

In the recent western unrest, anger at the authorities' handling of a brawl between Uighur and Han factory workers in south China triggered a protest Sunday 1,800 miles (3,000 kilometers) away in Xinjiang, the Uighur homeland. Uighurs beat Han — members of the majority ethnicity in China — and torched their shops and cars. After security forces quelled the riots, vigilantes on both sides attacked people in the regional capital Urumqi.

"There is huge distrust between ethnic groups," said Nicholas Bequelin, Asia researcher for New York-based Human Rights Watch. Incidents such as the factory clash show that "people have negative stereotypes about each other, there's racism in a sense, and every community closes ranks against the 'waidiren' — the people from outside."

Government policies don't help. Beijing has promoted economic development in Xinjiang and Tibet, but it has also imposed Chinese language and culture and ignored minority grievances, blaming overseas exiles for inciting any unrest.

Many minority communities remain poor, which only hardens Han stereotypes that other groups are lazy and ungrateful, despite the government's economic assistance. The Han make up 91 percent of the population.

Even in the absence of such policies, old tensions bubble up.

February's melee in Henan province started when Han and Hui boys quarreled over fireworks. A 2004 traffic accident in another Henan village degenerated into an ethnic fight that left seven dead officially and, according to some foreign news reports, as many as 150.

Farther east in Shandong province, police shot and killed at least five Hui in a protest march in 2000 after a Han butcher advertised sales of "Muslim pork" — outraging Muslims whose dietary laws forbid the eating of pork.

Even among the Han, old feuds between clans and villages have picked up in recent years. Police deployed in March to separate two villages on the tropical island of Hainan after a fight between residents left one dead. The cause, state media said, was an 80-year-old land dispute.

Uighurs and Tibetans complain of being discriminated against when trying to get jobs and bank loans, unlike, they say, Han migrants. In Xinjiang, the Han population has soared, from 6 percent in 1949 to 40 percent in 2000.

Policies that phase out instruction in minority languages in favor of Chinese in upper grades leaves Tibetans and Uighurs feeling further disadvantaged, both in school and later in the job market. Beijing maintains the language policy is to bring these groups into the thriving mainstream.

The government also restricts religion, appointing imams and senior clerics, limiting the numbers of monks, tearing down unregistered madrassas and prohibiting minors and university students from taking part in religious services.

The government's "attitude is that Tibetans simply have to become Chinese and Uighurs simply have to become Chinese," said Andrew Fischer, an expert in development policies of western China at the Institute of Social Studies at the Hague in the Netherlands.

Beijing defends its approach, pointing to the economic progress and infrastructure Chinese rule has brought minority areas.

"The mainstream position for the last 50 years is that the minorities have benefited from Chinese peaceful liberation and being brought into the motherland and there's no problem at all," said Fischer.

The distrust of some minorities is thinly veiled. During last year's Beijing Olympics, police told hotels near Olympic venues not to rent rooms to Tibetans, Uighurs or Mongolians.

The Xinjiang riots have stirred anger among many Han, who have seen images of bleeding Han civilians on state-controlled media.

Many comments on online forums have called for a harsher crackdown. Some even say the rioters should all be shot — a comment echoed this week by Urumqi's Communist Party secretary, Li Zhi, who said that rioters involved in killings and violent crimes would be executed.

Hundreds protest in Iran, defying crackdown vow

By NASSER KARIMI, Associated Press Writer

TEHRAN, Iran – Hundreds of young men and women chanted "death to the dictator," confronting police wielding batons and firing tear gas in the capital Thursday as opposition activists sought to revive street protests despite authorities' vows to "smash" any new marches.

For days, supporters of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi have been calling for new protests in Tehran and other cities on Thursday, their first significant attempt to get back on the streets since security forces crushed massive demonstrations nearly two weeks ago in Iran's post election turmoil.

Tehran governor Morteza Tamaddon warned that any new march Thursday would meet the same fate.

"If some individuals plan to carry out any anti-security actions by listening to calls by counterrevolutionary networks, they will be smashed under the feet of our aware people," he said, according to the state news agency IRNA in a report late Wednesday.

Thursday afternoon, a stepped-up number of uniformed policemen along with plainclothes Basiji militiamen stood at intersections all along Revolution Street and at nearby near Tehran University, some of the sites where protests were called.

Still, a group of around 300 young people gathered in front of Tehran University and began to chant, "Death to the dictator," witnesses said. Many of them wore green surgical masks, the color of Mousavi's movement.

Police charged at them, swinging batons, but the protesters fled, then regrouped at another corner and resumed chanting, the witnesses said. Police chased them repeatedly as the protesters continued to regroup, the witnesses said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they feared government retribution.

Within an hour, the number of protesters grew to about 700 and marched toward the gates of Tehran University, the witnesses said. A line of policemen blocked their path, but they did nothing to disperse the gathering as the protesters stood and continued to chant, the witnesses said.

At another location, on Valiasr Street, around 200 protesters gathered, and police fired tear gas to disperse them, but the demonstrators sought to regroup elsewhere, the witnesses said.

Soon after the confrontations began, mobile phone service was cut off in Tehran, a step that was also taken during the height of the post-election protests to cut off communications. Mobile phone messaging has been cut in the country for the past three days.

They were the first such protests in 11 days, since the crackdown — though it did not compare to the hundreds of thousands who joined the marches that erupted after the June 12 presidential election, protesting what the opposition said were fraudulent results.

The calls for a new march have been circulating for days on social networking Web sites and pro-opposition Web sites. Opposition supporters planned the marches to coincide with the anniversary Thursday of a 1999 attack by Basij on a Tehran University dorm to stop protests in which one student was killed.

Ahead of Thursday's planned march, authorities appeared to have taken a number of other steps to prevent participation, including the halting of SMS messaging. The government also closed down universities and called a government holiday on Tuesday and Wednesday, citing a heavy dust and pollution cloud that has blanketed Tehran and other parts of the country this week.

Mousavi and his pro-reform supporters say he won the election, which official results showed as a landslide victory for incumbent hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei declared the results valid after a partial recount and warned that unrest would not be tolerated.

In the crackdown since the election, at least 20 protesters and 7 Basijis were killed.

Police have said 1,000 people were arrested and that most have since been released. But the state-run English language news network Press TV quoted prosecutor-general Qorban-Ali Dorri Najafabadi saying Wednesday that 2,500 people were arrested and that 500 of them could face trial. The remainder, he said, have been released.

Arrests have continued over the past week, with police rounding up dozens of activists, journalists and bloggers.

In the latest detentions, a prominent human rights lawyer Mohammad Ali Dadkhah was taken away by security forces from his office Wednesday along with his daughter and three other members of his staff, the pro-opposition news Web site Norouz reported. A former deputy commerce minister in a previous pro-reform government, Feizollah Arab-Sorkhi, was also arrested at his Tehran home, the site reported.

A large number of top figures in Iran's reform movement, including a former vice president and former Cabinet members, have been held for weeks since the election.

Iranian authorities have depicted the post election turmoil as instigated by enemy nations aiming to thwart Ahmadinejad's re-election, and officials say some of those detained confessed to fomenting the unrest. Opposition supporters say the confessions were forced under duress.

2 NATO soldiers killed in southern Afghanistan

KABUL – NATO says a roadside blast in southern Afghanistan has killed two of its soldiers.

The military alliance gave no further details about Wednesday's attack or the nationalities of the victims.

NATO forces in the south include U.S. Marines engaged in a major anti-Taliban offensive in Helmand province. Troops from Britain, Canada and other nations also fight under the alliance's command in the volatile region.

Indonesia's president: a crooner and a general

By NINIEK KARMINI, Associated Press Writer

JAKARTA, Indonesia – President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, heading for a sweeping re-election victory, is a retired four-star general who rose through the ranks of Indonesia's former dictatorship yet has recorded his own albums of romantic ballads.

Critics call Yudhoyono indecisive, but he has cultivated an image as a tough and dedicated corruption fighter with high moral integrity. He also ushered in an era of financial and political stability, ending a series of secessionist conflicts and restoring economic growth after the devastating Asian financial crisis in 1997-98 wiped out millions of jobs.

Yudhoyono, 59, the nation's first directly elected leader, gained widespread praise for a crackdown on Islamic militants after a series of suicide bombings killed 240 people.

Sometimes called "the thinking general," friends say he is a solitary and well-read man with a sharp intellect.

But some analysts say Yudhoyono is slow to make decisions. "Everyone knows he is an indecisive leader," said Satya Arinanto, a political professor at the University of Indonesia. With a strong mandate from the public, however, "there will be no more excuse for him to hesitate," he said.

During an otherwise dull campaign period before Wednesday's vote, Yudhoyono came out last week as a believer of Javanese mysticism, saying his family had prayed to repel attacks from opponents.

"In this period of campaigning, there are many people out there who use black magic," he was quoted by local media as telling an Islamic prayer session at his home. "Thankfully we got to our destination safely."

Dino Patti Jalal, a close aide and presidential spokesman, defended Yudhoyono's governing style in a new book, "We Can!" He describes the head of state as "a troubleshooter" who carefully listens to staff, has a keen memory for detail and prefers action over words.

One of the greatest challenges for Yudhoyono came in the first year of his presidency when the 2004 Asian tsunami killed 130,000 people and displaced half a million more on Aceh province.

Foreign governments said he effectively managed one of the largest donor programs in history and then forged peace with rebels in the province in the wake of the disaster.

Yudhoyono, whose father was an army lieutenant, graduated from the national military academy at age 24 at the top of his class. He has a master's degree in management from Webster University in St. Louis, Mo. He received military training at Ft. Benning, Georgia, and Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas.

During later deployments to the former Indonesian territory of East Timor, where around 174,000 Timorese died as a result of Indonesian military operations, Yudhoyono headed a battalion of soldiers.

His name has been mentioned by opponents in connection with atrocities, but there have never been trials for past military rights abuses and no evidence has ever been presented linking him to wrongdoing.

It was his reputation for integrity and respect for human rights that led to his appointment in 1995 as a top military observer with the U.N. peacekeeping force in Bosnia, where he headed a contingent of Indonesian soldiers.

As Indonesia entered a period of instability at the end of the 32-year Suharto dictatorship in the late 1990s, Yudhoyono continued to climb the military ladder.

Joining the first post-Suharto government as mining minister, he quickly rose to the prominent post of security and political affairs minister. His resignation after a political spat over the country's future with the president earned him public support and he handily won the 2004 presidency.

Married with two sons, the president has released several albums featuring his own love songs, some of them now covered by Indonesian boy bands and sold in record stores.

They "express my feelings and thoughts as president and an ordinary human being," he said on his Web site.

Obama broadens push for climate change pact

By BEN FELLER, Associated Press Writer

L'AQUILA, Italy – Rallying rich and surging nations alike, President Barack Obama wants the world's top polluters to keep driving toward a deal to halt global warming.

Nearing six months on the job, Obama has some momentum: a new agreement among developed and emerging nations to cap rising global temperatures, plus good will from his peers for repositioning the U.S. as an aggressive player in the debate.

Yet when Obama helps lead a gathering of the world's major economies here Thursday, he will run smack into the same old problem: Neither the wealthy nor the developing countries think the other side is doing enough. And only when the pollution emitters work together on a binding plan will a climate strategy work, experts say.

Even victory came with a setback on Wednesday. The G-8 nations set a goal of cutting all greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2050, but developing nations refused to go along.

Confronting global warming — a trend scientists say could unleash devastating droughts, floods and disease if left unchecked — is a dominant theme again at this year's G-8 summit of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States.

Obama will take part in discussions all day on climate and a host of economic issues, and the number of countries represented at the table will just keep growing.

First, the traditional industrialized powers will expand their forum to other strategic economies: Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa, plus a special invitee, Egypt.

And Obama later will help lead a forum of major economies that also includes Australia, Indonesia and South Korea. Together, including the U.S., the represented countries account for about 80 percent of the emissions of the heat-trapping gases blamed for global warming.

The results this week will be a pivotal marker of what could happen in talks in December in Copenhagen, when the United Nations tries to conclude a new worldwide climate deal.

"This will also be an opportunity for the president and the other leaders to discuss what they can do collectively to add political momentum to the negotiations," Mike Froman, a national security aide leading the administration's G-8 efforts, said ahead of Thursday's events.

The two blocs — the richest countries and the fastest growing ones — did strike an important agreement Wednesday. Their unified position now is that global temperature should be kept from rising by more than 3.6 degrees (2 degrees Celsius).

That's the point at which the Earth's climate system would fall into perilous instability, according to the United Nations' chief panel on climate change.

The U.S. and the other G-8 nations set a new goal of reducing their greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent or more by 2050, part of their global goal of a 50 percent cut.

More steps by developed and developing countries will be announced Thursday, Froman said.

But the emerging countries are refusing to commit to specific reduction targets.

They are upset that the industrialized G-8 has not been forthcoming on either midterm emissions reductions — well before 2050 — or pledges of financing and transferring technology to the developing world. And they worry that major reductions could hamper their economies.

"Support from the G-8 is only the first step in what is likely to be a long and difficult process," said Guy Caruso, a senior adviser for the energy and national security program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank in Washington.

"The Major Economies Forum recognizes this reality," he said. "The bottom line is that the industrialized countries will need to provide the incentives to the emerging economies."

Obama begins his agenda Thursday by meeting with Brazil's president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who has called on rich nations to bear more of the cost of fighting global warming.

The Silva meeting is a late add. It comes during the slot when Obama was to have met with Chinese President Hu Jintao, who returned home to deal with an outbreak of ethnic violence.

Hu's departure is seen by analysts as weakening the chances that the U.S. and other G-8 countries can advance climate talks at this summit with China and a few of its close peers.

Blast in central Afghanistan kills 25

By RAHIM FAIEZ

KABUL – A massive blast triggered Thursday in an overturned timber truck in central Afghanistan killed 25 people, destroyed shops and propelled pieces of the vehicle more than a mile (about 2 kilometers) away, officials said.

The explosion killed 21 civilians and four policemen in Logar province, south of Kabul, and also demolished nearby dairy shops, ministry spokesman Zemerai Bashary said.

Authorities suspect the truck may have been heading into Kabul with the explosives, but that it overturned on the main road between Logar province and the capital late Wednesday, provincial police chief Mustafa Khan said.

After police arrived to clear the road, militants apparently decided to blow up the truck where it overturned, Khan said, adding that authorities believe the explosives were mingled with timber in the back of the truck and that they were remotely detonated.

The power of the blast sent truck pieces more than a mile away (some 2 kilometers away), another police official said.

The blast took place in Mohammad Agha district, close to shops that collect milk from farmers. At least six of those killed were students from a nearby primary boys school, the second police official in Logar said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

The blast happened as thousands of U.S. Marines in southern Afghanistan are involved in the biggest American military offensive in country since the ouster of the Taliban from power in 2001.

Chinese armed police watch over a calmer Urumqi

By WILLIAM FOREMAN, Associated Press Writer

URUMQI, China – Security forces kept a firm grip on the tense Xinjiang capital Thursday after days of ethnic violence that killed 156 people, and alarmed Chinese leaders vowed to deal firmly with those behind the attacks.

Crowds of Han Chinese, China's dominant ethnic group, cheered as trucks full of police and covered in banners reading "We must defeat the terrorists" and "Oppose ethnic separatism and hatred" rumbled by. The minority Uighurs became far more fearful about talking to reporters.

The region's worst ethnic violence in decades has already forced President Hu Jintao to cut short a trip to Italy, where he was to participate in a Group of Eight summit and hold talks with President Barack Obama. It was an embarrassing move for a leader who wants to show that China has a harmonious society as it prepares to celebrate the 60th anniversary of communist rule in October.

Public Security Minister Meng Jiangzhu, who is in Urumqi (pronounced uh-ROOM-chee), has said "key rioters should be punished with the utmost severity."

The hundreds of troops that had camped out in the central part of Urumqi for the past three days were gone, but paramilitary police still guarded People's Square and military helicopters flew over the city of 2.3 million.

Xinjiang — a sprawling, oil-rich territory that borders several Central Asian countries — is home to the Uighurs, largely Muslim, who rioted Sunday and attacked Han Chinese after holding a protest that was ended by police.

Officials have said 156 people were killed and more than 1,100 people hurt as the Turkic-speaking Uighurs ran amok in the city, beating and stabbing in anger over the late June deaths of Uighur factory workers during a brawl in a southern Chinese city. State-run media have said two workers died, but many Uighurs believe more were killed.

The Uighurs (pronounced WEE-gers) say trigger-happy security forces gunned down many of Sunday's protesters. Officials have yet to give an ethnic breakdown of those killed.

The People's Daily, the ruling Communist Party's main newspaper, ran an editorial Thursday saying the violence was "in extreme violation of China's laws."

Fear was almost palpable in a Uighur neighborhood called Saimachang, where two days ago a large group of sobbing women scuffled with police and accused them of rounding up their husbands and sons for being suspects in the rioting.

On Thursday the Uighurs were far more cautious.

"We can't tell the truth, my friend," said one elderly man who would not give his name.

One woman led an Associated Press reporter to her home in a back alley. Four women quickly gathered and began complaining about their missing husbands and sons.

"The men they arrested still have not returned," said one woman, who said her name was Guli. "It has been three days and we haven't been able to talk with them. We have no news."

After an hour, a Uighur official approached reporters and politely asked everyone to leave.

Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking people who have complained about the influx of Han Chinese in the region and government restrictions on religion, said the incident was an example of how little the government cared about them.

Government officials and state media continued to accuse U.S.-exiled Uighur activist Rebiya Kadeer and her overseas followers of being behind the violence. She has denied the allegations and accused China of inciting the violence.

Urumqi's mayor, Jierla Yishamuding, was quoted by state media as saying Wednesday that the government would create a 100 million yuan ($14.6 million) Comfort Fund to help families of the dead, as well as those who were injured or disabled in the riot.

Chinese troops flood streets after riots

By WILLIAM FOREMAN, Associated Press Writer

URUMQI, China – Thousands of Chinese troops flooded into this city Wednesday to separate feuding ethnic groups after three days of communal violence left 156 people dead, and a senior Communist Party official vowed to execute those guilty of murder in the rioting in western China.

Long convoys of armored cars and green troop trucks with riot police rumbled through Urumqi, a city of 2.3 million people. Other security forces carrying automatic rifles with bayonets formed cordons to defend Muslim neighborhoods from marauding groups of vigilantes with sticks.

Military helicopters buzzed over Xinjiang's regional capital, dropping pamphlets urging people to stay in their homes and stop fighting. Special police from other provinces were called in to patrol the city.

The crisis was so severe that President Hu Jintao cut short a trip to Italy, where he was to participate in a Group of Eight summit. It was an embarrassing move for a leader who wants to show that China has a harmonious society as it prepares to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Communist rule.

The heightened security came amid the worst spasm of ethnic violence in decades in Xinjiang — a sprawling, oil-rich territory that borders Pakistan, Afghanistan and other Central Asian countries. The region is home to the Uighur ethnic minority, who rioted Sunday and attacked the Han Chinese — the nation's biggest ethnic group — after holding a protest that was ended by police.

Officials have said 156 people were killed as the Turkic-speaking Uighurs ran amok in the city, beating and stabbing the Han Chinese. The Uighurs allege that trigger-happy security forces gunned down many of the protesters, and officials have yet to give an ethnic breakdown of those killed.

In Rome, a Germany-based Uighur leader, Erkin Alptekin, told The Associated Press that "our countrymen in China" reported that 600-800 Uighurs were killed in the past few days and 3,000 were arrested.

"We were told (by fellow Uighurs) that 140 were dead on the spot" on Sunday and that their bodies were tossed into trucks and taken away by Chinese security forces, said Alptekin, who briefed the human rights commission in the Italian parliament.

"When the Uighurs heard the people were fired upon, parents all came out looking for their sons and daughters," he said, adding that security forces started to "disperse them by force, then started to beat them, tear gas them and shoot them."

His account could not be independently confirmed.

More than 1,100 people were wounded in the violence. Dr. Yuan Hong of Urumqi People's Hospital said most of the people treated at his facility were clubbed, while others had been cut by knives.

Li Zhi, the highest-ranking Communist Party official in Urumqi, told reporters that some of the rioters were university students who were misled and didn't understand what they were doing. They would be treated leniently, he said, as long as they weren't involved in serious acts of violence and vandalism.

But Li added: "To those who committed crimes with cruel means, we will execute them."

He also repeated allegations that the riot was whipped up by U.S.-exiled Uighur activist Rebiya Kadeer and her overseas supporters. "They're afraid to see our economic prosperity. They're afraid to see our ethnic unity and the people living a stable, prosperous life," he said.

Kadeer has denied masterminding the violence, and many Uighurs laughed off the notion that they were puppets of groups abroad.

"Not even a 3-year-old would believe that Rebiya stirred this up. It's ridiculous," said a shopkeeper who only identified himself as Ahmet. Like other Uighurs, he declined to give his full name because he feared the police would detain him.

Ahmet was quick to rattle off a long list of grievances commonly mentioned by Uighurs. He accused the Han Chinese of discrimination and alleged that government policies were forcing them to abandon their culture, language and Islamic faith.

"After all this rioting, I'm still filled with hatred. I'm not afraid of the Han Chinese," Ahmet said.

His neighborhood in southern Urumqi was targeted by mobs of Han Chinese who roamed the capital Tuesday seeking revenge. Ahmet's friends had video shot by mobile phones and cameras that showed the stick-wielding Han men beating Uighurs. He pointed to blood stains on a white concrete apartment wall, where he said a Uighur was severely stabbed.

A Uighur college student who called herself Parizat added, "The men were carrying a Chinese flag. I never thought something like this would happen. We're all Chinese citizens."

The Uighurs accused paramilitary police of allowing the Han Chinese to attack their neighbors. But in the video, the troops appeared to be trying to block or restrain the mobs.

On Wednesday, the government warned residents against carrying weapons on the street, and most people generally complied. But there were groups of Han Chinese who tried to find soft spots in police cordons and rush into Uighur neighborhoods.

One such failed attempt sent a wave of terror and panic through the biggest Uighur neighborhood, Er Dao Qiao.

When someone yelled, "The Han are coming!" children scampered indoors and women ran shrieking through a backstreet market with carts of watermelons, shops selling cold soft drinks and smoky grills with sizzling lamb kebabs.

Within seconds, the men armed themselves with spears stashed behind doors and under market stands. The weapons were long poles with knives and meat cleavers tied to the ends. Piles of rocks were placed across the street for ammunition.

One Uighur graduate student who called himself Memet greeted a foreign reporter in English by saying, "Welcome to the jungle!"

"I think the Uighur people lately are kind of happy. You can see it in their eyes, a bit of happiness. We've spoken up. People know we exist now," he said.

The ethnic hatred in Xinjiang appears to run so deep that many Uighurs won't express sorrow for the Han Chinese who were attacked Sunday.

One of them was Dong Yuanyuan, 24, a newlywed who said she was on a bus with her husband getting ready to leave on their honeymoon. She said Uighur attackers dragged them off the bus and beat them until they were unconscious. Her husband was still missing, said the woman, who had abrasions on her face, arms and knees.

"My aunts have been going to all the hospitals to search for him. He must still be unconscious," she told reporters who joined a government tour at the People's Hospital.

Abdul Rehim, a Uighur with his left arm in a sling, said he was walking with his brother when a group of Han Chinese "just came out and did this to me."

Another victim was Ma Weihong, who said she was walking home from a park with her 10-year-old son when the riot started. The boy suffered minor injuries, but the mother had a broken arm and wrist, missing teeth and head wounds.

"The stores all closed up and we tried to run for home," she said. "That is when they caught us. We couldn't get away."