World | Agence France-Presse | Wednesday July 30, 2014
Uighurs appearing in the news more and more often! Is it correct that Uighurs and Khazars and Turks have the the same Caucasian ( and even deeper from Asia) common origin? m.l.p.
Uighurs appearing in the news more and more often! Is it correct that Uighurs and Khazars and Turks have the the same Caucasian ( and even deeper from Asia) common origin? m.l.p.
37 civilians, 59 'terrorists' killed in earlier attack in China's Xinjiang region: Xinhua
Updated
An attack on a police station and government offices
in China's western Xinjiang region earlier this week left 37 civilians
and 59 "terrorists" dead, Chinese state media says.
Police had arrested 215 "terrorists" while 13 civilians were also injured in Monday's attack, Xinhua news agency said on Sunday.The attack occurred in Shache county, or Yarkand in the Uighur language, and was the latest in a series of violent incidents to have affected the vast region in recent months.
News of the clash first emerged late on Tuesday when Xinhua reported that dozens of people had been killed and injured by a knife-wielding gang.
A spokesman for the exile group World Uyghur Congress later said nearly 100 people had been killed or wounded.
Information in Xinjiang, in China's far west, is often difficult to verify independently.
The region is home to the mostly Muslim Uighur minority, and Beijing has blamed a series of recent terror attacks on violent separatists from the vast, resource-rich area.
Such attacks have grown in scale and sophistication over the last year and have spread outside the restive region.
Thirty-nine people were killed in a market attack in Xinjiang's capital Urumqi in May.
A rampage by knife-wielding assailants at a train station at Kunming in China's southwest in March, left 29 dead.
The violence has also included a fiery vehicle crash at Tiananmen Square, Beijing's symbolic heart, in October.
On Friday, police in Xinjiang shot dead nine suspected terrorists and captured one, according to Xinhua.
That came two days after Jume Tahir, the government-appointed head of the largest mosque in China, was murdered after leading morning prayers.
Jume Tahir was killed in the city of Kashgar by "three thugs influenced by religious extremist ideology", the Xinjiang government web portal Tianshan reported.
Rights groups accuse China's government of cultural and religious repression they say fuels unrest in Xinjiang, which borders Central Asia.
AFP
BEIJING: Chinese state media said on Sunday that 37 civilians and 59 “terrorists” had been killed in an attack earlier in the week in Xinjiang, home to China’s mainly Muslim Uighur minority.
The total toll makes the incident by far the bloodiest since rioting involving Uighurs and members of China’s Han majority killed around 200 people in the regional capital Urumqi in 2009.
Police had arrested 215 “terrorists” while 13 civilians were also wounded in Monday’s attack on a police station and government offices in Shache county, or Yarkand in the Uighur language, in Kashgar prefecture, according to the official Xinhua news agency.
It was the latest in a series of violent incidents over recent months in and connected with the vast resource-rich region, where rights groups accuse China’s government of cultural and religious repression they say fuels unrest.
News of the clash first emerged late on Tuesday when Xinhua reported that dozens of people had been killed or wounded by knife-wielding assailants.
In its report on Sunday, Xinhua said that 35 of the dead civilians were Han Chinese while two were Uighurs.
“A gang armed with knives and axes attacked a police station and government offices,” it said, with some later moving on to another township, “attacking civilians and smashing vehicles as they passed”.
“The gangsters also set roadblocks and stopped vehicles passing by, before slashing passengers indiscriminately and forcing civilians to join them in the terror attack,” it added, citing police.
Officers had confiscated knives from the scene as well as “banners that hailed holy war.”
The news agency cited the government as saying investigations showed the attack was “organized and premeditated,” and “in connection with the terrorist group East Turkestan Islamic Movement” (ETIM).
Information in Xinjiang, in China’s far west, is often difficult to verify independently, and many foreign analysts doubt ETIM’s capacities.
Dilxat Raxit, a spokesman for the exiled World Uyghur Congress (WUC), accused Beijing’s security forces of using submachine guns and sniper rifles, leading to “huge casualties.”
“China has distorted the incident and claimed terrorism in order to cover up the truth, which is that they opened fire to repress Uighurs,” he said in a statement emailed to Agence France-Presse.
AFP