BEIJING – Weekend violence in China’s restive Xinjiang region left as many as 15 people dead, including three killed during or after a bombing attack Sunday afternoon and four attackers shot dead an hour later by Chinese security forces, according to official news agency accounts and residents reached by telephone.
The Sunday violence follows an incident reported late Saturday, when two bombs exploded, and two assailants reportedly hijacked a truck, stabbing the driver and ramming the vehicle into a crowd of pedestrians, killing seven people and injuring 22. The crowd reportedly killed one of the hijackers.
The violence occurred in the border town of Kashgar, the old Silk Road city in far Western Xinjiang near the border with Tajikistan.
Details were still emerging late Sunday, but security officials blamed the upsurge of violence on “rioters,” the term often used for Xinjiang’s Muslim Uigher separatists who have staged mostly low-level attacks against Chinese government rule. n one of the most brazen attacks, assailants stormed a police station July 18 in Hotan city and took hostages, killing four people before police in turn killed 14 of the attackers, although Uigher exile groups dispute that account of the incident.
The Sunday violence follows an incident reported late Saturday, when two bombs exploded, and two assailants reportedly hijacked a truck, stabbing the driver and ramming the vehicle into a crowd of pedestrians, killing seven people and injuring 22. The crowd reportedly killed one of the hijackers.
The violence occurred in the border town of Kashgar, the old Silk Road city in far Western Xinjiang near the border with Tajikistan.
Details were still emerging late Sunday, but security officials blamed the upsurge of violence on “rioters,” the term often used for Xinjiang’s Muslim Uigher separatists who have staged mostly low-level attacks against Chinese government rule. n one of the most brazen attacks, assailants stormed a police station July 18 in Hotan city and took hostages, killing four people before police in turn killed 14 of the attackers, although Uigher exile groups dispute that account of the incident.
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