The Hotan Prefecture government in the violence wracked and Muslim-majority Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in southwestern China is offering a reward of over $720,000 (RMB5 million) to informants for information about Muslim Uyghur militants fighting to declare independence from China.
The bounty is part of a ramped-up effort by Beijing to crack down on Muslim Uyghur militants that began two weeks ago, and was boldly challenged last week by Uyghur militants allied with ISIL. The Uyghurs from ISIL released a chilling video threatening to "shed blood like rivers" in China when they returned home from fighting in Syria.
"We will come to you to clarify to you with the tongues of our weapons, to shed blood like rivers and avenging the oppressed," said an Uyghur in the video
The video is ISIL's first threat against China. The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region is dominated by Muslim Uyghurs that comprise 46 percent of the region's population of 24 million.
Two weeks ago, China's People's Armed Police (PAP) and soldiers of the People's Liberation Army Ground Force (PLAGF) staged a huge military parade at Urumqi, Xinjiang's capital, in another attempt to cow Muslim Uyghurs into submission.
The parade showcased black clad PAP policemen armed with assault rifles; black painted armored cars mounting machine guns and armed PLA infantry in camouflage uniforms. This noisy show of force also showed these armed police shouting anti-terror slogans and promising to defeat terror while police armored cars rumbled through the streets.
Hundreds of ethnic Muslim Uyghurs have been killed by PAP over the past years in anti-terror operations.
And on Feb. 27, both the PAP and the PLA staged a large joint counter-terrorism drill around the Tianshan Mountains in Xinjiang Uyghur.
Planes and helicopters were used to transport thousands of PAP and PLA soldiers, which then conducted patrols in the prefectures of Kashgar, Hotan and Aksu, the centers of Uyghur resistance to Chinese domination. The newly arrived soldiers are part of a new counter-terrorism force deployed to Xinjiang.
The three prefectures in southern Xinjiang are mainly populated by the ethnic Uyghurs and are described by the PLA as areas Muslim terrorists frequently attack.