At least 18 people were killed when ethnic Uighurs attacked police with knives and bombs after speeding through a traffic checkpoint in a car in China’s troubled Xinjiang region, Radio Free Asia reported on Wednesday.
The attack took place on Monday at the beginning of the Muslim fasting month of Ramzan in Xinjiang’s Kashgar city, an RFA Uighur service said. Tensions in the southern city between Muslim Uighurs, who call the region home, and the majority Han Chinese have led to bloodshed in recent years.
Armed police responded to the attack and killed 15 suspects ‘designated as terrorists’, said RFA. .
However, an unnamed retired government worker was quoted as saying that he had heard from a police officer that “28 people were killed in the incident, including six attackers and three police, while the others were all bystanders.”
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told reporters that he could not immediately verify the report. “But if it is correct, then the government has the responsibility to take resolute steps to stop these violent terror acts, to maintain peace and stability in Xinjiang,” Lu said.
State media tight-lipped “It seems the police who arrived at the spot were either panicked or encouraged by the ‘strike hard’ policy, because they opened fire indiscriminately and many people who were not linked to the attackers got killed,” he said.
China’s tightly-controlled state media has so far not reported the attack.
