The story appears on

Page A3

April 30, 2013

GET this page in PDF

Free for subscribers

View shopping cart

Related News

HomeNation

19 suspects held for deadly terror clash in Xinjiang

ELEVEN runaway suspected terrorists linked to a deadly attack on April 23 in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region have been captured, police sources said yesterday.

Police say they have now caught all 19 suspects from the region's Kashgar Prefecture, the Mongolian Autonomous Prefecture of Bayingolin and the regional capital of Urumqi.

The announcement came six days after the violent clash between the terrorists and authorities in a town of Kashgar's Bachu County left 21 people dead.

The fatalities included 15 community workers and police officers and six terrorists.

Eight suspects were captured on the day of the clash.

The terrorist group, headed by Qasim Muhammat, was founded last September, police said.

Group members regularly watched video clips advocating religious extremism and terrorism and attended illegal preaching ceremonies.

Since early December, they had gathered at the house of Muhanmetemin Barat, a group member, to do physical training and practise killing skills they had learned from terrorist videos, police said.

In early March, the gang made explosive devices and remote controls and later carried out five explosion tests.

They had planned to "do something big" in the densely populated public areas of Kashgar in the summer, police said.

The group were spotted making explosives on April 23 by police and community workers, a discovery which led to the deadly clash.

Vice Minister of Public Security Meng Hongwei said yesterday that police had tracked down a batch of homemade explosives, lethal weapons and flags of "East Turkistan" terrorists after the April 23 clash.

He called the clash "a serious violent terrorist criminal case," which led to significant losses.

During the clash, the suspects brutally killed law enforcement personnel and innocent residents, with no regard for their gender or ethnic group, he said. The tragedy "fully showed their anti-human and anti-social nature," Meng added.

Yesterday, the community workers and police officers who died during the attack were honored for their bravery and sacrifice. A meeting of the Party's regional committee and the local government named them as "anti-terrorist heroes."

Ten of the 15 victims were of the Uygur ethnic group, three were of the Han ethnic group and two were of the Mongolian ethnic group.

Seven of the 15 were also honored as "regional outstanding Party members."

Nur Bekri, the regional governor, said at the meeting that the nature of the terrorist clash was not about ethnic or religious issues, but a terrorist act to split the motherland and undermine national unity.

"It is a political fight between separatism and anti-separatism, and between safeguarding national unity and undermining national unity," he said.

 

Copyright 漏 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.

娌叕缃戝畨澶 31010602000204鍙

Email this to your friend