Ruh-roh 3 : Muslima confesses to Chinese terror attempt

The temptation to make water torture jokes is strong.

As is the urge to make toilet jokes, given her surname is Turdi and she tried to set the sky commode on fire.

A 19-year-old woman has allegedly confessed to a "terror plot" aimed at an aircraft flying from the Muslim west of China to the capital Beijing.

State media said the girl, named for the first time as Guzalinur Turdi, was trying to cause a fire above the wing. She had injected two drinks cans with petrol, which she had placed in the waste-paper bin in the toilet, when she was spotted by an air stewardess.

The revelation of the "terror attack" was made during the National People's Congress, or parliament session, in Beijing this month by senior officials from the region of Xinjiang, which is inhabited by members of the mainly Muslim Uighur ethnic group.

A long history of dissent and calls for autonomy has occasionally erupted into violence, though there have been no major reported terror attacks since the 1990s.

At the same time as the aircraft attack was foiled, the provincial Communist Party secretary also alleged that a Muslim terror group based in the region was plotting to attack ...

...the Olympics, though he did not say what evidence he had.

Exile groups who oppose Chinese rule have alleged that both incidents were fabricated by the authorities to discredit them.

Previously state media have reported that Turdi was travelling on a Pakistani passport with a male companion, who was also arrested, as was a third man not on the plane who was said to be the "terrorist mastermind".