NEW DELHI, India - A leading al-Qaida theologian and possible successor to Osama bin Laden called for a holy war against China, which he accused of "Satanic" oppression of Muslims in the westernmost province of Xinjiang.

"The state of atheism is heading to its fall," Abu Yahya al-Libi said in a video posted on an unspecified Islamic Web site, Reuters reported yesterday. China has carried out massacres of Muslim ethnic Uighurs in Xinjiang and pursued policies aimed at "their demise and destruction" while "looting their wealth and undermining their culture and religion," Reuters citing him saying.

"This is the latest in a series of warnings that should make the Chinese greatly worried," said Bahukutumbi Raman, a former Indian counter-terrorism chief and analyst at India's Chennai Center for China Studies. After Chinese-Uighur riots in Xinjiang in July, "al-Qaida in the Maghreb issued a threat to attack Chinese targets," and a riot erupted in Algiers Aug. 3 against local Chinese shopkeepers.

The July riots in Xinjiang's capital were the deadliest in China in decades, with almost 200 people killed and more than a thousand injured. Muslim Uighurs have complained that decades of government-sponsored migration to the province threatens to make them a minority in their own homeland and destroy their culture.

The growing focus of al-Qaida and its affiliates on Xinjiang "is a serious and growing concern" for China, Fan Shiming, assistant dean of international studies at Peking University, said yesterday at a conference in New Delhi.

East Turkistan

China is worried about the presence in Taliban-ruled areas of Pakistan of fighters from the Xinjiang-based East Turkistan Islamic Movement, Fan said. The group, an affiliate of al-Qaida, has vowed to conduct an Islamic uprising and is described by the U.S. as a terrorist organization.

Al-Qaida's call for Jihad comes before a meeting next week of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a group including Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan that was set up to address cross-border issues including terrorism.

Abu Yahya is a rising leader of al-Qaida who appeals to a younger generation of militants, according to Jarret Brachman, the former director of research at West Point's Combating Terrorism Center.

"He has become the obvious heir apparent," Brachman wrote in Foreign Policy journal last month. "With Abu Yahya at its helm, al-Qaida is certain to become a more frightening enemy."

China will suffer the same fate as the "Russian bear," al-Libi said, according to Reuters, referring to the retreat from Afghanistan by the Soviet Union in the face of attacks by Islamic groups that included the precursor to al-Qaida.

THE CHINA POST / ASIA NEWS NETWORK