Five suicide bombers carried out the attack which killed 31 people in the capital of China’s troubled Xinjiang region, state media reported a day after the deadliest terrorist attack to date in the region.
The incident, which occurred in Urumqi on Thursday morning, was the second suicide attack in the capital in just over three weeks. A bomb and knife attack at an Urumqi train station in late April killed one bystander and wounded 79.
The government recently launched a campaign to strike hard against terrorism in Xinjiang, blaming Islamists and separatists for the worsening violence in the resource-rich western region bordering central Asia. At least 180 people have been killed in attacks across China over the past year.
The attackers ploughed two vehicles into an open market in Urumqi and hurled explosives. Many of the 94 people wounded were elderly shoppers, according to witnesses.
“Five suspects who participated in the violent terrorist attack blew themselves up,” the Global Times, a tabloid run by the People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party, reported on Friday.
The newspaper said authorities “are investigating whether there were other accomplices”.
“Judging from the many terrorist attacks that have taken place and the relevant perpetrators, they have received support from terrorist groups outside China’s borders as well as religious extremist propaganda spread via the internet,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said at a daily news briefing.
No group has claimed responsibility for Thursday’s attack.
