According to what I've read online, some Uighurs are fighting for the establishment of a theocratic state. So, this conflict is ideologically intertwined with other theocratic seeking insurrections in much of the world - Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Nigeria, Philippines, Chechnya, Thailand, etc.
Additionally, some Uighurs are trained in Pakistan's tribal regions along with al-Qaeda and Taliban militants, so there's sometimes a direct connection between terrorist attacks in China and the Uighurs baesd in Pakistan.
A group of knife-wielding men have attacked a market in the volatile Xinjiang region of northwest China, home to the mainly Muslim Uighur minority, leaving at least 12 people dead, according to police and state media.
The motive behind the attack late on Tuesday was not immediately clear, although Xinjiang has suffered repeated outbreaks of unrest in recent years that the government has routinely blamed on separatists and terrorists.
A local police officer told the AFP news agency that about a dozen Uighurs had attacked the market in the town of Yecheng (also known as Kargilik, in the Kashgar prefecture), killing 10 people.
The state Xinhua news agency reported that police then killed two of the attackers, adding that they were armed with knives. A report on the Xinjiang government's website, meanwhile, said that seven attackers had been killed, after they had killed 13 "innocent people"....
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia-paci ... 18604.html
