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China-Japan-Koreas
Kunming terrorism: first responders took on assailants bare-handed (Xinhua)
2014-03-05
KUNMING, March 4 (Xinhua) -- After twenty minutes of brutal close fighting between railway police and attackers, shots by a police officer from an emergency response team finally halted the terrorist attack Saturday night in the southwestern city of Kunming.

Without warning, knife-wielding attackers appeared at the main railway station in Kunming, the capital of southwest China's Yunnan Province on Saturday and began slashing at crowds, killing 29 people and injuring 143.

The health authority on Monday said that 20 of the 143 injured in Kunming are still in critical condition.

When policeman Zhang Liyuan recalled the night at the hospital, he seemed calm. Zhang's finger had been chopped off while fighting barehanded against one of the attackers.

Railway police in China usually do not carry guns. Guns were kept together at police stations, according to police.
When seconds count the police are just minutes away, and their guns mere hours behind...
"The railway police station received a report of the attack at 9:15 p.m," Zhang said. "There was no time for me to think. I rushed out of my office and headed to the square to save people while calling for more support."
Brave man.
Zhang said he saw the attackers were hacking people at random. He shouted, "Come attack me!" to attract the attention of the attackers and lead them to a parking area where there were fewer people.

"But they did not follow me and they ran toward the crowds, so I chased them," Zhang said.

When Zhang saw a railway security guard had stopped one attacker and others came to attack him, Zhang went up to help.

"One of the attackers turned around and cut right on my hand," Zhang said.

More people would have been injured or killed if the police officer who was the only one carrying an automatic rifle did not arrive in time.

"I fired several warning shots after I arrived at the scene, but the attackers did not stop their frantic slaughter," said the policeman from the Guandu sub-bureau of the Kunming Municipal Public Security Bureau.

"I was 15 meters away from the attackers then. I saw them slicing the victims one by one," the policeman said. "I shouted out, 'put down your knives' and fired warning shots before they all turned to me."
Next time, no warning shot.
"When a thin, black-masked attacker approached to less than one meter away from my gunpoint, I shot the attacker down. The other four attackers,however, did not back off and continued to run at me with knives, so I fired at all of them," he said.

"After all five attackers were shot down, the first one stood up again and threw a knife at me, I tilted my head and avoided the weapon," he said.

"I had to shoot them down, because if I didn't, I'm sure the attackers would have harmed more civilians, and they would have hurt me as well if I had fired more slowly. They all came to me with knives 60 to 70 centimeters long," he said.

The Ministry of Public Security said in a statement that a terrorist gang led by Abdurehim Kurban was responsible for the attack.

Police shot and killed four of them and captured an injured female attacker at the scene on Saturday night, according to the statement. Police on Monday said that three suspects involved in the terrorist attack had been captured two days after the terrorist attack took place.
The only thing missing would be the shouts of "Allahu Akhbar", but stay tuned...
Posted by:Anguper Hupomosing9418

#14  Backing OE9815:

Zhang said he saw the attackers were hacking people at random. He shouted, "Come attack me!" to attract the attention of the attackers and lead them to a parking area where there were fewer people.

"But they did not follow me and they ran toward the crowds, so I chased them," Zhang said.
Posted by: swksvolFF   2014-03-05 18:38  

#13  Terrorists create the most terror when they attack the most innocent.
Posted by: Omavising Ebbemp9815   2014-03-05 17:16  

#12  Rambler: at least that's what the local party guy in Xinjiang said in #6.
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain   2014-03-05 16:42  

#11  The attackers could not have been Muslims. After all, Islam is a religion of peace. They were probably Amish or Methodists or something. /sarcasm
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia   2014-03-05 14:48  

#10  Good guys. Need a raise.
WRT dao. Had a fencing coach tell me that "draw", or slicing, is more effective than simply smashing. That's not true against armor, of course.
And curved blades have the draw built in. Hence, for example, the scimitar.

Same thing could happen in, say, NYC or any campus. In fact, it's more likely than, say, a firebombing, since the mooslim grad students can't seem to build one of those right.
Posted by: Richard Aubrey   2014-03-05 14:47  

#9  Skid, it's a historical anomaly that Chinese has that the word for straight sword, jian, is translated 'sword' but curved swords are called 'dao,' which is also used to refer to the common knife.

I'm not sure of the history, but I think they've given up on long curved dao three or four separate times in their history only to have to reinvent it the next time they wound up having to fight the Mongols.
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain   2014-03-05 14:39  

#8  A media kerfluffle in China about an online vendor selling black T-shirts (in Chinese, T恤衫, believe it or not) with Arabic-like writing on it, and the star & crescent symbol.
See here for a screen capture, not very clear but the best I can do for now:
https://www.scmp.com/sites/default/files/2014/03/05/2.jpg

In related news a popular online shopping website in China on Monday banned sales of t-shirts that closely resemble the one worn by one of the attackers in the rampage.

The advertisement on Taobao, the consumer-to-consumer retail platform of the Alibaba Group, first emerged after police over the weekend displayed on television a black t-shirt bearing designs that they had taken from a terrorist shot dead in the wake of the attack.

The advert on the virtual store explicitly touted for pre-sale of the t-shirts and clearly related it to the terrorist attack.

“Taobao will never tolerate such commodities. [We] resolutely oppose to any anti-humanity conduct such as this,” the online shopping website said in a statement on Monday.

The virtual store had already been permanently closed and all orders had been scrapped, it added.

The online community has widely applauded Taobao's action. Many voiced support and condemned the vendors for lacking conscience. “You asked for it,” many of them said on the internet.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418    2014-03-05 14:36  

#7  knives 60 to 70 centimeters long
70cm = .76yds = 2.3ft = 27.5in
Quite a knife, about the size of a machete.
Posted by: Skidmark   2014-03-05 14:11  

#6  Local politician comments (Xin Hua)
Nur [? equivalent to Noor] Bekri, chairman of the regional government:
Any country under the rule of law and any individual with conscience will not tolerate such an act, he said.

"We should see through the ugly nature of terrorists. They are anti-humanity and sociopathic."

The people in Xinjiang support the Party and the government's efforts to fight terrorists and safeguard stability, he said.

Terrorists are common enemies to all people, including every ethnic group in Xinjiang, he said.

"They do not represent any ethnic group, and their activities are not about ethnic or religious issues," he said. "The battle against them is life-or-death."

I think he gets it.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418    2014-03-05 13:45  

#5  More local commentary (Xin Hua)
BEIJING, March 5 (Xinhua) --
The Great Hall of the People, the very center of the state, witnessed two silent tributes this week from China's most powerful people to victims of a shocking terrorist attack.

On Wednesday morning, at the opening meeting of the annual session of the National People's Congress (NPC), China's legislature, around 3,000 deputies lowered their heads and stood in silence for a minute for the dead in the killing spree at a railway station in the southwestern city of Kunming.

Last time the NPC paid silent tribute at its annual session was in March 1997 for Deng Xiaoping, the prominent Chinese leader who passed away in February of the same year...Behind such respect to life of ordinary people is the Chinese government's people-oriented governance approach, a gradual, but visible, change in recent years.

In his debut speech as general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee in November 2012, Xi Jinping told media "to meet their (the people's) desire for a happy life is our mission."

As for China's fight against terrorism, those moments of silence may endow it with more strength.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418    2014-03-05 13:41  

#4  US police take note: this is what it means to protect and serve, not beating down unarmed joggers.
Posted by: OldSpook   2014-03-05 13:38  

#3  Chinese grammar & syntax be hard.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418    2014-03-05 13:37  

#2  More people would have been injured or killed if the police officer who was the only one carrying an automatic rifle did not arrive in time.

I think this statement gained something in translation.
Posted by: gorb   2014-03-05 13:35  

#1  Whatever they pay those guys, isn't enough.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418    2014-03-05 13:34  

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