Police kill ‘ terrorists’ after attacks launched in western region
BEIJING — Chinese police killed eight “terrorists” who attacked with machetes and drove cars that carried explosive gas cylinders they detonated as bombs in the restive western Xinjiang region, state media said.
Three other assailants died when explosives they were carrying blew up in the attack, according to the Tianshan news portal, which is run by the regional branch of the Communist party.
The reports did not identify the ethnicity of the assailants, but it was the latest in a series of attacks pointing to growing unrest in the sprawling region. Xinjiang is home to a simmering rebellion against Chinese rule among parts of the native Turkic Uighur population who want more autonomy from Beijing. Recent clashes, including an attack on police last month, have left dozens of people dead.
The official Xinhua News Agency said the assailants rode motorbikes and drove cars that carried liquefied natural gas cylinders they intended to use as suicide bombs.
They attacked a team of police who had gathered at the gate of a park for a routine patrol in Wushi, Xinhua said, calling the assailants “terrorists.”
The Chinese government typically calls such incidents terrorist attacks linked to radicals based overseas, although Beijing has provided little concrete evidence to back its claim. Activists say despair over economic and social discrimination and cultural and religious restrictions are fuelling anger among Uighurs.
An exiled Uighur activist accused Beijing of labelling the attackers terrorists in order to justify the authorities’ use of armed force against them.
“The cause of the Uighur struggle is China’s armed forces’ use of violent raids and provocations,” said Dilxat Raxit, a spokesman for the Germanbased World Uyghur Congress. “No one can continue to bear China’s provocations and its systematic police of repression.”
Two bystanders and two police officers were injured in the attack, while five police patrol vehicles were damaged, the report said. Photos posted by Tianshan showed a military police jeep and a troop transporter that were heavily damaged, their windows shattered and fronts burned out.