Fifteen dead, 14 hurt in attack in China’s Xinjiang

SHANGHAI: Fifteen people were killed when a group threw explosives into a crowded street where vendors were selling food in China’s restive region of Xinjiang, the official Xinhua news agency said on Saturday. Eleven were attackers who were killed by the police, the agency said, and 14 people were injured. The attackers also stabbed people in Friday’s attack in Shache County, state-owned Xinjiang news website Tianshan News said. It said police found detonation devices, large knives and axes at the scene. Deadly attacks in the north-western region in recent years have left hundreds dead. The government has mostly blamed attacks on ethnic Uighur separatists, who it says want to form an independent country called East Turkestan. Heavy restrictions on journalists in Xinjiang have made verifying details about such incidents difficult. Knife-wielding attackers killed 38 people in an incident in Shache County in July. A local court sentenced 12 of the attackers to death in October. China has tightened its controls over the region as unrest grows. On Friday, the Xinjiang People’s Congress passed a regulation banning people from wearing or forcing others to wear logos or clothes associated with religious extremism, state-backed newspaper China Daily reported on Saturday.   REUTERS