Rioters among eight dead in knife attack on Chinese crowd

Killings took place in region home to Muslim minority

BEIJING // Eight people were killed in a knife attack on a crowd in Xinjiang region, China, including three assailants who were shot by police, officials said yesterday.

Ten others were injured in the attack on Tuesday in Pishan county, according to the government of Hotan city.

Police sped to the scene within a minute of the attack, it said, describing the attackers as rioters.

The far-western region is the homeland of the Uighurs – a traditionally Muslim group, many of whom complain of cultural and religious persecution and discrimination – and is often hit by deadly unrest.

Beijing regularly accuses what it calls exiled Uighur separatist groups such as the East Turkestan Islamic Movement of orchestrating attacks in the vast, resource-rich region.

Analysts outside China have expressed doubts about the strength of the groups and their links to global terrorism, with some claiming China exaggerates the threat to justify harsh security measures.

Dilxat Raxit, spokesman for the exiled World Uighur Congress, said police arrested six people after the attack, including two young Uighurs who shared information about the incident by mobile phone.

“Armed forces in the county are targeting Uighurs for investigation and demanding that Chinese people stay in their homes,” he said, citing sources in Xinjiang.

“I am worried the case will provide China with a new political excuse for repression and will cause more people to face discriminatory inspections or detentions.”

Last month, police killed three “rioters” after a manhunt for suspected members of a “violent terror group” linked to a 2015 attack in Pishan county, according to the regional government’s official website.

Weeks earlier, state media reported that three attackers were shot and killed after detonating an explosive device at a party office in Moyu County, killing two people and injuring three. In November 2015, police killed 28 members of a “terrorist group” over the course of a 56- day manhunt after an attack on a colliery in Aksu two months previously in which 16 people were killed. In March 2014, 31 people were knifed to death at a train station in Kunming, in southwest China, with four attackers killed.

Xinjiang separatists were blamed for the attack and state media called it “China’s 9/11”.