2 runaway terrorist suspects shot dead in Xinjiang
The two suspects who fled after a violent terrorist attack Sunday afternoon in China's far western Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region have been shot dead by police, Xinhua reported, citing local authorities.
Hou Hanmin, director of Xinjiang's International Communication Office said, police shot dead 29-year-old Memtieli Tiliwaldi and 34-year-old Turson Hasan Monday in a corn field in the suburb of Kashgar, an oasis city in southern Xinjiang.
Police authorities in Kashgar confirmed their deaths.
Police issued arrest warrants for the two suspects in the wee hours of Monday and promised to offer 100,000 yuan (15,384 U.S. dollars) for information which could lead to their arrests.
Six civilians were killed, 15 others -- including three policemen -- were injured after attackers set fire to a restaurant and started randomly killing civilians on a major shopping street in Kashgar on Sunday, the regional publicity department said in a statement.
Five suspects were shot dead by police Sunday and two fled the scene.
The Sunday attack was the second violent case in Kashgar over the weekend. On Saturday night, two rioters hijacked a truck after stabbing dead the driver, and then rammed the vehicle into a crowd in a food market and attacked the pedestrians at random with knives.
Eight civilians were killed while 27 others were injured. One of the rioters died while fighting with locals, and the other was apprehended.
The violent attacks within 24 hours has shocked local residents and disrupted their once peaceful life.
On the first day of Ramadan -- the Muslim holy month of fasting and spiritual reflection, most shops in the city center where the terrorist attack occurred remained closed. Many had signs of "clearance sale" or "50 percent off".
Traffic controls on main roads have been lifted, but armed paramilitary troops and police and paramilitary cars still patrolled the urban area. Policemen with riot guns were seen standing guard at the gates of bus and police stations.
"We're all worried after the two attacks," Wu Congkuan, a restaurant owner said to Xinhua News Agency, "We closed the restaurant today and let our staff go back home."
The restaurant will be opened again if the situations are under control, Wu said. "The public security in Kashgar used to be very good," he said.
Ismailjang, a young man of Uygur ethnic minority in Kashgar, said people should do good things during Ramadan and he felt sad the terrorist attacks happened ahead of the holy month.
"The Islam didn't incite believers to kill people and do bad things," Ismailjang said, blaming religious extremism and incitation by separatist for the terrorist attacks.
Government authorities said Monday a group of religious extremists led by militants trained in overseas terrorist camps was behind the Sunday attack on civilians.
The initial probe found that the group's leaders had learned how to make explosives and firearms in overseas camps of the terrorist group "East Turkistan Islamic Movement" (ETIM) in Pakistan before entering Xinjiang to organize terrorist activities, the government of Kashgar City said in a statement.
The government statement said the suspects all harbored thoughts of religious extremism.
"The outbreak of violence was absolutely no random occurrence," it said. "They (suspects) wanted to disturb social stability, incite ethnic hatred, and create conflicts between ethnic groups in order to split Xinjiang from the motherland."
Xinjiang -- with 41.5 percent of its population Uygurs, a Muslim Chinese ethnic group -- is China's frontline against terrorism. The region borders eight countries, many of which including Pakistan and Afghanistan have been plagued by terrorism.
The region is targeted by the "East Turkistan" separatist forces.
Pan Zhiping, a researcher with the Central Asia Studies Institute under the Xinjiang Academy of Social Sciences, called the ETIM "the most violent and dangerous" among the "East Turkistan" separatist forces. He said the organization is based somewhere along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
The ETIM traditionally trains its members for suicide bombings and car bombings before sending them to Xinjiang. But these days the movement is relying more on the Internet to penetrate the border to spread bomb-making techniques, Pan and other long-time Xinjiang observers said.
The United Nations and the Chinese government have labeled the ETIM an international terrorist organization.
The Kashgar municipal government called on residents of the Silk Road city to steadfastly fight all sorts of separatist activities, place firm trust in the Party and the government, and refrain from being incited to participate in rallies or other "mass incidents."
It also ordered to add more security guards to urban and rural areas to guard against further terrorist attacks.
Last week, security forces in Urumqi staged an anti-terror drill as the city prepares to host the first ever China-Eurasia Expo in September, an event co-sponsored by 27 state departments led by the Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
A big riot happened on July 5, 2009, when rock-flinging and knife-wielding rioters looted shops, torched vehicles and killed nearly 200 people.
In March 2008, five months before the Beijing Olympics, police arrested a 19-year-old Uygur for her foiled terrorist attempt on a passenger flight.
