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Chinese police shoot dead 'terrorists' in Xinjiang, says state media

Group on motorbikes and driving cars carrying gas cylinders allegedly tried to carry out suicide attack against police officers 

theguardian.com, Friday 14 February 2014 13.46 GMT

Police officers were near a park preparing to begin a routine patrol when the attempted attack took place, the Xinhua news agency says. Photograph: Marwan Naamani/EPA

Chinese authorities have shot dead "several terrorists" in Xinjiang in the latest violent incident in the restive western region which is home to mostly Muslim Uighurs, state media has said.

"Several terrorists were shot dead by police during a terrorist attack on Friday afternoon," said the Xinhua news agency.

The group in Wushi county, Aksu prefecture, attempted to carry out a suicide attack against a group of police officers near a park who were preparing to begin a routine patrol, it said. The would-be bombers rode motorbikes and drove cars carrying gas cylinders, it added.

Xinjiang police and information officers declined to comment, while Wushi government and police officials could not be reached.

Aksu, in the far west of Xinjiang near the border with Kyrgyzstan, was the scene of three explosions in late January that killed at least three people, according to a Xinjiang government website. Police shot dead six people soon afterwards. Xinhua, citing a police investigation, described the blasts as organised and premeditated terrorist attacks.

The region has for years been the location of occasional unrest carried out by Uighurs, which rights groups say is driven by cultural oppression, intrusive security measures and immigration by Han Chinese.

Authorities routinely attribute such incidents to terrorists and argue thatChina faces a violent separatist movement in the area motivated by religious extremism and linked to foreign terrorist groups.

"Terrorist attacks" totalled 190 in 2012, "increasing by a significant margin from 2011", Xinhua said, citing regional authorities. But experts question the strength of any resistance movement and information in the area is hard to independently verify. The most serious recent incident took place in Turpan last June, leaving at least 35 people dead.

In October, three family members from Xinjiang died when they drove a car into crowds of tourists on Tiananmen Square in Beijing, the symbolic heart of the Chinese state, killing two, before the vehicle burst into flames, according to authorities.

China's top security official, Meng Jianzhu, said the attackers had "behind the scenes supporters" from the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) based outside the country.

The United States and the United Nations categorised ETIM as a terrorist organisation in 2002, during a period of increased US-Chinese co-operation after the 9/11 attacks. But the group's strength and links to global terrorism are unclear and some experts say China exaggerates its threat to justify tough security measures in Xinjiang.

Last month police detained the Uighur academic Ilham Tohti, a rare outspoken critic of the government's policies toward the ethnic group, accusing him of being involved in separatist activities.