BEIJING
Police have reported the death of "dozens" of people after a mob attacked a police station and government offices in northwest China's Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region.
China’s state news agency Xinhua reported that the gang ran riot in Elixku Township in Shache County, Kashgar Prefecture on Monday - attacking civilians and smashing vehicles - and some then moved on to the nearby Huangdi Township.
Xinhua said that dozens of Uighur - a Turkic-speaking Muslim ethnic minority group who have accused the Chinese government of human rights violations and discrimination - and Han civilians were killed or injured in the attack and police had shot dozens of members of the mob.
Local police said that initial investigations had shown it to be an "organized and premeditated" "terror" attack.
In December last year, police shot dead eight people wielding knives who threw explosives and set police cars on fire during an attack on a station in Shache.
A yearlong "anti-terrorism" campaign - focusing on Xinjiang - was launched by China’s central government in May and will be in effect until June 2015.
The campaign came after an attack in which 31 people were killed and 94 others injured when two off-road vehicles ploughed through a market in regional capital Urumqi. Witnesses said that explosives were thrown from the vehicles, which later blew up.
The death toll was the highest in the region since 2009 riots in Urumqi killed almost 200 people.
www.aa.com.tr/en
