China and Pakistan anti-terror exercise - China battalion in Taliban
China and Pakistan started an exercise last Saturday at a training base of the Lanzhou Military Command, which guards the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.
The week-long exercise coincides with the one-year anniversary of the July 5 riots in Xinjiang, which left at least 197 people dead and more than 1,700 injured.
An increasing number of members of the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM), which led the riots and is labeled a terrorist group by the UN Security Council, are reportedly fleeing to Pakistan and settling down there for future plots.
According to latest reports, the ETIM has been in close collaboration with the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden. An ETIM leader is also reportedly hiding in Pakistan and there are reports of a "Chinese battalion" made up of about 320 ETIM members in the Taliban forces.
"It is not hard for them (ETIM members) to hide in Pakistan. They have similar religious beliefs, appearances and languages as the locals," the Beijing-based World News newspaper reported on July 1.
"Owning to the prevailing environments in our region, there is a need to enhance our cooperation," Lieutenant General Khalid Shameem Wynne, chief of the general staff of the Pakistani army, told soldiers at the opening ceremony of the exercise.
