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Police kill 4 suspects in Xinjiang city

2011-08-01 07:33    Xinhua     Web Editor: Li Jing

KASHI, Xinjiang -- Four suspects were shot dead by police in the city of Kashi (or Kashgar) in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region Sunday afternoon.

Four others were caught, while police are hunting for the rest four following an eruption of violence at 4:30 p.m., in which more than 10 pedestrians and police officers had been found injured.

Local sources have earlier said three people died from a blast at the scene, but witnesses said the victims were hacked to death by the rioters.

The incident happened after at least seven people were killed by rioters on Saturday night in the same city.

Two suspects hijacked a truck at 11:45 p.m. Saturday, stabbing the driver to death and ramming into pedestrians. The pair later jumped out of the truck and hacked bystanders.

Xinjiang, home to China's Uygur minority and other ethnic groups, has been under terrorist threat.

Police shot 14 rioters who attacked a police station and killed four people in Xinjiang's Hotan city on July 18.

The attack left four people dead, including an armed police officer, a security guard, a woman and a teenage girl. At least four others were injured.

Police concluded later that the riot was "a severely violent terrorism case" that was organized by terrorism groups.

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.