BEIJING (AP) — Chinese police in a restive western region on Thursday shot and killed a person who allegedly attacked them with knives and explosives and caught another suspect, official media said.
Police in Aksu city stopped a car for inspection at a roadblock when the suspects attacked the officers with knives and threw an explosive at a patrol car, said the Tianshan website, run by the Xinjiang regional Communist Party branch.
The report said one auxiliary police officer was seriously injured but provided few other details, such as the location of the attack and the number of police and vehicles involved. Aksu police refused to answer questions when reached by phone.
Dilxat Raxit, spokesman for the World Uyghur Congress based in Germany, said the clash took place at a major intersection in the city and that it was the result of a provocation by police.
Reached by phone, a woman at a hotel and a man at an eyewear store near the intersection said they heard an explosion at around 2 p.m. Both refused to give their names.
The exact circumstances of the clash were unclear. Extremists among the Turkic Uighur Muslim minority population in Xinjiang have been waging a simmering insurgency against Beijing for years.
Last week, a suicide bombing at a train station in the capital of Xinjiang left three people dead and 79 injured, prompting Chinese President Xi Jinping to demand “decisive actions” against terrorism.
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