China kills two suspects in Xinjiang violence

Chinese police have shot dead two men suspected of mounting a fatal attack in Xinjiang region on Sunday, the state-run Xinhua news agency reports.

It said the two, Memtieli Tiliwaldi and Turson Hasan, were found hiding in a corn field on the outskirts of the city of Kashgar.
Six people were killed in an attack on a restaurant there. Police shot dead five suspects at the scene.
A weekend of violence left up to 18 people dead in the restive region.
The latest two killings add to that toll.
"We will harshly attack any atrocities that threaten people's lives, defile the dignity of the law, and threaten supreme national interests," said the governor of Xinjiang, Nur Bekri.
In 2009, riots erupted in Xinjiang in which nearly 200 people died after tensions flared between the Muslim Uighurs - who are a majority in the region - and the Han Chinese.
The government had blamed the latest attack on "terrorists" trained in Pakistan.
Pakistan, a close ally of China, expressed its confidence that Beijing would succeed in frustrating the "evil designs of... extremists and separatists".
Violent dispute The Kashgar city government said suspects captured after the restaurant attack had admitted their leaders had joined the separatist East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) and been trained in making firearms and explosives.

The attackers followed "extremist religious ideology" and advocated "jihad", the government said.
This was disputed by Rebiya Kadeer, president of the World Uighur Congress which campaigns for self-rule for Uighurs.
"I cannot blame the Uighurs who carry out such attacks for they have been pushed to despair by Chinese policies," she told Reuters news agency.
Kashgar is in the west of Xinjiang region which has seen regular outbreaks of ethnic tension, mainly triggered by the influx of Han Chinese.
The weekend attacks were the second outbreak of violence in Xinjiang in a month.
On 18 July, several police officials and a number of civilians were killed in an attack on a police station in the city of Hotan.

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