Details
Two attackers were involved in the incident near the western city of Kashgar. The Xinhua News Agency said the attack happened at about 08:00 (00:00 GMT). One of the men drove a dump truck into a group of border patrol police officers as they were jogging on a street. The attacker then got out of the truck and start attacking other officers with homemade explosives. The explosives went off prematurely and blew off one of his arms. The other attacker threw improvised explosive devices at a nearby police office. He then went into the building with a knife, but was subdued by police officers inside the complex. Both perpetrators were captured during the raid. Fourteen policemen died at the scene and two died on the way to hospital; another 16 policemen were hurt, Xinhua state news agency reported. The attackers were later identified as males, taxi driver Kurbanjan Hemit, 28, and vegetable vendor Abdurahman Azat, 33. They are members of the Uyghur ethnic group, and it was suspected that the attack was a terrorist action by Eastern Turkistan separatists.
The news agency Xinhua claimed in their English-language version that the incident was a terrorist attack; on the other side, in their Chinese language version, the incident was only labeled as a violent crime. Police investigators later claimed that they had found documents calling for a holy war, a homemade firearm, and nine explosives. Furthermore, the police claimed that the design of these explosives was very similar to the explosives made by the ETIM when Chinese police raided their training facility in January 2007. Xinjiang's regional public security department also claimed that it had received intelligence that the East Turkestan independence movement planned to carry out terrorist attacks during the week before the opening ceremonies of the Olympic games. This incident happened four days before the Beijing Olympics, after repeated warnings in recent months from the Chinese government that militants from the restive Xinjiang region were planning to stage attacks to disrupt the Games.
In September 2008, the New York Times reported that three tourists who witnessed the events disputed central details of the official story. According to the eyewitnesses, no explosions were heard and the attackers appeared to be machete-wielding police officers attacking other uniformed men.
Read more about this topic: 2008 Kashgar Attack
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