Chinese authorities launched a yearlong anti-terrorism crackdown Saturday in China’s Muslim northwest after a bombing in the region killed at least 43 people, while also announcing the first arrest in the attack.
Police announced names of five people blamed for Thursday’s attack in a vegetable market in the city of Urumqi, and accused them of forming a ”terrorist gang” at the end of 2013, the official Xinhua News Agency said.
Four of the suspects were killed and the fifth was captured Thursday night in an area about 250 kilometres south of Urumqi, Xinhua said.
The group ”took part in illegal religious activities, watched and listened to terrorist violence video and audio materials”, according to the news agency.
It said an anti-terrorism campaign with Xinjiang ”as the major battlefield” started Friday. Authorities would target religious extremist groups, gun and ”explosive manufacturing dens and terrorist training camps”.
”Terrorists and extremists will be hunted down and punished,” Xinhua said.
In Beijing, the national capital, police announced they were cancelling vacations for officers and would step up patrols at railway stations, schools, hospitals and markets.
A measure under which passengers at stations in central Beijing are required to undergo security checks will be extended to three additional stations, the city government said.
Passengers at all stations already are required to submit handbags and parcels for X-ray examination under measures imposed ahead of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.
Chinese authorities have blamed most recent attacks on radical separatists from the country’s Muslim Uighur minority.
