Police arrested an alleged member of a group that authorities said planned a "terrorist attack" that killed 35 people last week in China's troubled north-western region of Xinjiang, state media said Sunday. Police blamed the clash Wednesday in Lukqun, in Turpan prefecture's Shanshan county, on a gang of 17 Muslim extremists.
Yiblayan Eli, the man captured, was the "only rioter at large," a Xinjiang police statement said.
"The gang had raised funds, purchased knives and gasoline, and researched the sites since mid-June to prepare for the attack," the statement said.
Fearing their plot might be uncovered after one member was arrested Tuesday, "16 rioters on Wednesday morning attacked the township's police stations, a local government building, a construction site, a private store and a hair salon as well as set fire to police cars," the statement said.
Xinjiang is home to most of the world's Uighurs, a Muslim ethnic group that makes up about 40 per cent of the 21.8 million people in the vast, ethnically divided region that borders Pakistan, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Mongolia.
The Uighurs complain of cultural and religious repression and claim that ethnic Han Chinese migrants enjoy the main benefits of development in the oil-rich but economically backward region.
An official commentary by the Xinhua news agency denied the violence had targeted any particular ethnic group or religion.
"The atrocity was not a consequence of ethnic disputes or religious disagreements in Xinjiang," it said. "Rather, it was committed with the intention to disrupt social stability and sabotage interests of the whole Chinese nation."
The US State Department and two Uighur exile groups urged an independent investigation of the violence.
Two days after the attacks in Lukqun, more than 100 people riding motorbikes and wielding knives attacked a police station in the Xinjiang town of Hetian, state media reported. No casualty figures were released for the second incident.
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