You're reading: China blames Pakistan-trained militants for attack

BEIJING (AP) — China on Monday blamed Muslim extremists trained in Pakistan for an attack that killed six civilians in one of the most troubled ethnic regions where police later fatally shot five suspects.

Sunday’s attack raised the death toll from weekend violence in the Silk Road city of Kashgar in China’s far west to 18.

Kashgar is in Xinijang region, which has been tense since nearly 200 people were killed in fighting between Uighurs and Han Chinese in 2009 in Urumqi, the regional capital.

Kashgar’s city government said in a statement posted on its website that an initial investigation showed members of the group behind Sunday’s attack had trained in making explosives and firearms in Pakistan. It did not immediately offer any prove.

The "group of armed terrorists" stormed into a restaurant in the Kashgar city center, killing the owner and a waiter and setting the restaurant on fire, the city government said.

The attackers then ran out of the restaurant and stabbed civilians indiscriminately, leaving another four people dead and 12 injured, it said.

Police opened fire and shot dead four suspects at the scene, while another suspect died later in a hospital, it said.

Xinjiang has been beset by ethnic conflict and a sometimes-violent separatist movement by Uighurs, a largely Muslim ethnic group that sees Xinjiang as its homeland. Many Uighurs say they have been marginalized as more majority Han Chinese move into the region.

The statement called the latest violence a "premeditated terrorist attack."

Xinhua said that the local government issued arrest warrants Monday for two local ethnic Uighurs who allegedly fled the scene.

Sunday’s violence followed a day of clashes in the same Silk Road city that killed seven people and injured 22.

It was unclear who started the clashes in Kashgar. But an overseas ethnic activist group said Sunday that it feared the violence could prompt a new crackdown on minority Uighurs blamed for previous violence in the region.

Dilxat Raxit, spokesman for the German-based World Uyghur Congress, said that frustrations were forcing Uighurs to take to the streets.

"Uighurs have no peaceful way to oppose the Chinese government so some have taken to extreme measures. It is unthinkable but it is the reality, and Beijing should take responsibility to deal with these issues," he told The Associated Press from Sweden, where he is based.

China defends its treatment of minorities, saying all ethnic groups in the country are treated equally and that tens of billions of dollars in investment and aid have dramatically raised living standards.

On Saturday night, two knife-wielding men hijacked a truck in Kashgar, then rammed the vehicle into a crowd and got out to attack pedestrians, a police official said.

The attackers’ identities and motive were unclear.

People who came under attack retaliated, and one of the suspects was killed and the other caught, said the official from the Xinjiang regional public security bureau.

A total of seven people died and 22 were injured, she said. Xinhua said six bystanders and one suspect were killed.

The official said the case was under investigation and that the motive was unclear. She refused to give her name, as is common with Chinese officials.

In another violent incident less than two weeks ago, police shot 14 rioters who attacked a police station and killed four people in Hotan city, 300 miles (500 kilometers) southeast of Kashgar, Xinhua said.

Xinjiang is China’s Central Asian frontier, bordering Pakistan, Afghanistan, Russia and other countries. Kashgar was an important hub on the ancient route through which Chinese silk and other goods reached Europe.