Chinese police have killed 28 members of a “terrorist group” in the mainly Muslim Xinjiang region, authorities said yesterday, the bloodiest such operation in months as Beijing denounces Western “double standards” in the wake of the Paris attacks.
The killings took place over the course of a 56-day manhunt following an attack on a colliery in Aksu in September that left 16 people dead, the Xinjiang regional government’s Tianshan Web portal said.
One “thug” surrendered, it added.
Photo: Reuters
It was the first official confirmation of both the attack on the mine and the search for the perpetrators.
Xinjiang is the homeland of the mostly Muslim Uighur ethnic minority and is often hit by deadly unrest.
The assault on the colliery was “a violent terrorist attack under the direct command of an overseas extremist organization,” Tianshan said.
China’s Xinhua news agency cited a Xinjiang government statement identifying the attack leaders as Musa Tohniyaz and Mamat Aysa, both apparently Uighur names.
The reports came after Radio Free Asia (RFA), which is funded by the US government, said that more than 50 people, including five police officers, were killed in a knife attack at a colliery in Aksu in September.
The assailants targeted security guards, the mine owner’s house and a workers’ dormitory, RFA said.
Beijing regularly accuses what it says are exiled Uighur separatist groups of being behind attacks in Xinjiang.
Overseas experts doubt the strength of the groups and their links to global terrorism, with some saying China exaggerates the threat to justify tough security measures in the resource-rich region.
Beijing — which considers condemnations of attacks in Xinjiang by foreign governments as weak — slammed Western nations for applying “double standards” on terrorism in the wake of the Paris attacks that left at least 129 people dead.
“Double standards shouldn’t be allowed,” Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Sunday.
“China is a victim of terrorism,” Xinhua said in a commentary late on Thursday. “Combating the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, a UN-listed terror group, and other terrorist groups is an important component of the international fight against terrorism.”
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