Chinese security forces have killed 17 suspects from three families, including women and children, accused of involvement in an attack that left 50 people dead and injured 50 more in the troubled province of Xinjiang, Radio Free Asia has reported.
The government confirmed the operation had taken placed, without giving details of the casualties. "All terrorists were killed on the 56th day of a 'pursue and attack' operation in the region," the Ministry of Public Security announced in a statement on its website at the weekend.
The operation followed a September 18th attack at the Sogan colliery in Aksu, in which 50 died, most of them members of the Han Chinese majority. Police blamed separatists armed with knives for the attack.
Violence in Xinjiang and other parts of China started to intensify last year and hundreds have been killed in a series of bombings, knife attacks and clashes with security forces, which the Beijing government blames on Islamist militants.
Xinjiang’s 10 million-plus Turkic-speaking Uighurs are a largely Muslim ethnic group that shares close linguistic and cultural links to central Asia, and is quite distinct from Han Chinese.
After the attack, the police launched a manhunt for 17 suspects, including the three men believed to have been the masterminds behind the incident – Tursun Jume (46), Musa Toxtiniyaz (47) and Memet Eysa (60) from Chokatal Meadow, in Bay's Kanchi township – and their family members. Four of the suspects were women and three were children, RFA reported.
On Tuesday, police officers from Bay county confirmed to the US station’s Uighur-language Service that “all of the terrorists”, including the seven women and children, had been killed in a raid. The children included a one-year-old child and a nine-year-old girl.
Exmet Abliz, police chief of Bay’s Qeyir township, said he had been informed by his superiors that all the terrorists had been killed, and told RFA: “We were also warned not to hold any kind of celebration to mark the victory, and even not to talk much about it until the operation has officially been made public.”
The RFA went on to quote Ghalip Memet, a police officer in Terek township, saying security forces had set off an explosion to kill the suspects where they lay in hiding.
"I heard from colleagues who participated in the operation that the military blew up the cave where the suspects were hiding … that is why we were able to kill all of them with zero victims [from our side]\. Seventeen corpses were gathered after the explosion," said Mr Memet.
Speaking at an Asian summit this week, President Xi Jinping has called on the international community to support China’s battle against Islamist extremists in Xinjiang.
China believes the West is not sturdy enough in its condemnation of violence in Xinjiang, and wants its fight against the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement, a UN-listed terror group, to be acknowledged as an important part of the international fight against terrorism.
Human rights groups believe Beijing exaggerates the threat to justify harsh controls in the region, which has seen tensions between Uighurs and Han Chinese settlers.
Uighurs complain that Beijing is trying to crush their culture, but the government says it is trying to bring prosperity to the oil and gas-rich province.
