14 terrorists shot dead in Xinjiang attack
Print Edition
Fourteen terrorists attacking a police station in China’s northwestern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region were shot dead, but not before two officers were killed, police said last night.
Police were trying to capture a major terror suspect when a mob of terrorists wielding knives and explosives staged an attack on police in the Silk Road city of Kashgar’s Shufu County.
Six suspects have been held, Xinjiang’s news portal (www.ts.cn) reported, without saying whether the ringleader, Asan Ismail, was among those captured. Ismail’s 20-member terror group has gathered on many occasions to watch terror videos, spread extreme religious ideas, made explosives and guns, and conducted numerous test explosions since it was established in August, police said.
The group was planning to pull off a terror act, they said.
The attack happened at around 11pm on Sunday.
Foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said yesterday the incident “shows once again the anti-human and anti-society nature of terrorist groups.”
She told a daily news briefing: “It should be condemned by all people who love peace and stability. This conspiracy does not enjoy popular support and is doomed to failure.”
The incident comes less than two months after a terrorist attack at Beijing’s Tian’anmen Square, when three terrorists from Xinjiang ploughed into crowds of tourists, killing two people and injuring 40, before crashing outside the Forbidden City and setting their vehicle ablaze.
The three attackers — named as Usmen Hasan, his wife and his mother — all died.
The terrorist group East Turkistan Islamic Movement later claimed responsibility.
On November 16, nine attackers and two auxiliary police officers were killed in an attack at a police station in Serikbuya, near Kashgar.
Another incident in June in the Turpan area left 35 people dead, and 139 suspects have been arrested in recent months for spreading terrorist ideology.
On April 23, nine community workers and six policemen were either hacked or burnt to death in an attack in Bachu County near Kashgar. Six rioters were shot dead and eight were captured by police.
Nearly 200 people died and more than 1,600 were injured in riots in the regional capital Urumqi in 2009. More than 190 terrorist attacks were logged in Xinjiang last year, rising “by a significant margin” from 2011, the regional police department said.
Most of the attackers were in their early 30s or younger and increasingly act in small groups or as “lone wolves,” it said.
At a meeting last week, Turpan officials said violent “terrorists” remained active despite a “strike hard” campaign.
Southern Xinjiang’s Hotan, Kashgar and Aksu are areas overseas separatist forces intend to penetrate most, Xinhua news agency said.
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