The 2008 Kunming bus bombings occurred on 21 July 2008 when explosions aboard two public bus

Bus

A bus is a road vehicle designed to carry passengers. Buses can have a capacity as high as 300 passengers. The most common type of bus is the single-decker bus, with larger loads carried by double-decker buses and articulated buses, and smaller loads carried by midibuses and minibuses; coaches are...

es in downtown Kunming

Kunming

' is the capital and largest city of Yunnan Province in Southwest China. It was known as Yunnan-Fou until the 1920s. A prefecture-level city, it is the political, economic, communications and cultural centre of Yunnan, and is the seat of the provincial government...

, the capital of southwest China

China

Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

's Yunnan province, killed two people. The explosions were deliberate, according to police. The attacks occurred amid heightened tensions due to the Beijing Olympics

2008 Summer Olympics

The 2008 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXIX Olympiad, was a major international multi-sport event that took place in Beijing, China, from August 8 to August 24, 2008. A total of 11,028 athletes from 204 National Olympic Committees competed in 28 sports and 302 events...

. China later said the explosions were "not an act of terrorism".

Details

The blasts occurred about an hour apart during morning rush hour traffic in downtown Kunming, the city's police department said in a statement. The first blast occurred at about 7:00 am (2300 GMT Sunday) when the vehicle was at a bus stop, killing one woman and injuring 10 other people, the statement from Kunming police said. "The glass on both sides of the vehicle was all shattered and some of the seats were warped," it said. The second blast came about an hour later on the same road and killed one man, injuring four others, according to the statement.

Footage broadcast on state-run television showed a large hole blown in the side of one of the buses and extensive damage to its interior. Photos posted on the Yunnan Daily website showed one of the vehicle's windows blown out by the blast and shattered glass on the road.

Following the blasts, police cordoned off some streets in the area and carried out identity checks in a search for any "suspicious" persons, the Yunnan Public Security Bureau said in a statement.

Responsibility

On 26 July 2008, an alleged video of a group calling itself the Turkestan Islamic Party, claimed to have carried out bomb attacks on the buses in Kunming, along with an attack in May 2008 in Shanghai

Shanghai

Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...

. The Washington

Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

-based IntelCenter

IntelCenter

IntelCenter is a United States company, founded in 1993. It is based near Washington, D.C., in Alexandria, Virginia.The company "is a private contractor working for intelligence agencies". Its stated purpose is to "study terrorist groups and other threat actors and disseminating that information...

, which monitors terrorism communications, claimed the group released a video entitled Our Blessed Jihad in Yunnan. In it, the group's leader, Commander Seyfullah, claimed credit for several attacks and threatened this month's Olympics. "Despite the Turkestan Islamic Party's repeated warnings to China and international community about stopping the 29th Olympics

2008 Summer Olympics

The 2008 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXIX Olympiad, was a major international multi-sport event that took place in Beijing, China, from August 8 to August 24, 2008. A total of 11,028 athletes from 204 National Olympic Committees competed in 28 sports and 302 events...

 in Beijing

Beijing

Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...

, the Chinese have haughtily ignored our warnings," IntelCenter quoted him as saying. "The Turkestan Islamic Party volunteers who had gone through special preparations have started urgent actions."

However, China's foreign ministry said that it examined IntelCenter's claims and dismissed the claims, concluding that the group was not behind the attack.

Security is tight ahead of the Beijing Olympics, and security personnel have trained for many terrorist attack scenarios, and anti-aircraft missiles has been positioned outside the Bird's Nest Stadium

Beijing National Stadium

Beijing National Stadium, also known officially as the National Stadium, or colloquially as the Bird's Nest , is a stadium in Beijing, China. The stadium was designed for use throughout the 2008 Summer Olympics and Paralympics.-History:...

 and the Olympic Village

Olympic Village

An Olympic Village is an accommodation centre built for an Olympic Games, usually within an Olympic Park or elsewhere in a host city. Olympic Villages are built to house all participating athletes, as well as officials, athletic trainers, and other staff. Since the Munich Massacre at the 1972...

.