July 14 (Bloomberg) -- Al-Qaeda’s North African wing vowed to avenge the deaths of Muslim Uighurs in China’s Xinjiang province by targeting Chinese workers in Algeria, a risk analysis company said in a report.

Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb said it will target the 50,000 Chinese workers in Algeria and Chinese nationals and projects across northwestern Africa, said Stirling Assynt, which has offices in London and Hong Kong.

“This threat should be taken seriously,” the company said, adding that three weeks ago the Islamist group ambushed a convoy of Algerian security forces protecting Chinese engineers, killing 24 Algerians.

Almost 200 people have been killed this month in clashes between ethnic Uighurs and Han Chinese in Urumqi, the capital of China’s westernmost Xinjiang province, in the nation’s worst ethnic bloodshed in decades. Violence erupted again yesterday as police shot and killed two Uighur men armed with knives and sticks after an incident at a mosque in which a man urged a jihad, or holy war, the official Xinhua News Agency said today.

When the mosque’s imam called for help to expel the man, people alongside the protester brandished knives, according to the report. The two men were shot dead by police as they chased one of the mosque’s security guards, Xinhua reported. A third man was wounded.

Thousands of paramilitary and regular police have been deployed in the city to maintain peace. The clashes that started July 5 weren’t caused by differences over religion or ethnicity, a Chinese government spokesman said today.

Seeking Retribution

“We hope the relevant Muslim countries and Muslims can recognize the true nature of the July 5 incident in Urumqi,” Qin Gang, a spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry, said today at a briefing in Beijing. “It’s not an issue of religion or ethnic groups,” he said, adding that “The purpose is the sabotage of China’s unity and ethnic solidarity.”

Hundreds of Uighur protesters attacked Han Chinese, smashed businesses and set fire to buses in Urumqi on July 5. Two days later, thousands of local Han Chinese took to the streets armed with machetes, steel bars and other weapons seeking retribution.

Police fired tear gas and formed barricades to stop them from entering Urumqi’s Uighur neighborhoods. The clashes killed 184 people as of July 10.

Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, which wants to impose an Islamic state in Algeria, was founded in the mid-1990s. It pledged allegiance to Osama bin Laden in 2003. The Maghreb is the Arabic name for the North African countries of Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia.

‘Avenge Injustices’

It is the first militant group to formally react to the violence in Xinjiang province, Stirling Assynt said. The company said there had been an increase in “chatter” on the Internet among so-called jihadists, or militants engaged in a holy war, about the need for action “to avenge the perceived injustices in Xinjiang.”

“Some of these individuals have been actively seeking information on China’s interests in the Muslim world which they could use for targeting purposes,” Stirling Assynt said, adding locations included North Africa, Sudan, Pakistan and Yemen.

Other militant groups may make similar threats and al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula “could well target Chinese projects in Yemen,” according to the report.

Oil, Gas Reserves

Ethnic Han Chinese make up more than 90 percent of the nation’s population. Muslim Uighurs, who make up less than half of Xinjiang’s 20 million population after years of Han migration, complain of discrimination and unfair division of the region’s resources. The landlocked province, about three times the size of France, has China’s second-highest oil and natural gas reserves.

Chinese President Hu Jintao cut short his trip to the Group of Eight summit in Italy so he could return to Beijing to deal with the unrest.

Urumqi residents were ordered on July 12 to always carry their citizen identity cards or driver’s licenses, Xinhua reported yesterday. Anyone found not to be carrying identification will be taken by police for interrogation, the Beijing-based news service said.

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Last Updated: July 14, 2009 06:15 EDT