China Labels Tiananmen Crash ‘Terrorist Attack’, Arrests Five Suspects
The car explosion which killed five people Monday, including the three occupants of the car, was a terrorist attack, Chinese authorities say. Five suspects have been arrest ed in connection with the blast.
The car’s occupants and the five other suspects are all Uyghurs from the western province of Xinjiang, according to Chinese state media.
Police had alerted hotels in the capital to look out for eight suspects from China’s restive Xinjiang region after the incident, which killed two tourists and injured dozens in the symbolic heart of the Chinese state.
The suspects appeared mostly to be from China’s mainly Muslim Uighur ethnic minority, who are concentrated in far-western Xinjiang, and the names CCTV gave for the three people in the vehicle appeared to be Uighur.
Beijing has blamed Uighur groups for what it calls “terrorist” attacks in Xinjiang, but details of alleged incidents are hard to confirm, and exile groups accuse China of exaggerating the threat to justify religious and cultural restrictions.
More: China Labels Tiananmen Crash ‘Terrorist Attack’, Arrests Five Suspects
The explosion near the entrance to the Forbidden City also killed a Chinese man and a Filipina woman, both tourists. Several other bystanders were injured.