Report: Police kill 5 suspects after bombings in outlying Chinese province during Olympics

The pre-dawn violence in the Muslim region of Xinjiang came amid tightened security following a deadly attack last Monday and threats by a militant Islamic group to disrupt the games.

The official Xinhua News Agency said attackers in Kuqa county flung homemade explosives at the local police station and office of industry and commerce from inside a taxi. Two police officers and a security guard were wounded and two police cars were destroyed, Xinhua said, citing Xinjiang's public security bureau.

It was unclear how many assailants were involved in the attack, but Xinhua said police shot dead five of the suspects.

The already tight security in Xinjiang was increased in the past week after assailants killed 16 border police and wounded 16 others in the city of Kashgar on Aug. 4, ramming a stolen truck into the group before tossing homemade bombs and stabbing them in a brazen attack.

The to attacks mark a dramatic increase in violence in Xinjiang, where local Muslims have waged a sputtering rebellion against Chinese rule. Heavy security had largely succeeded in suppressing violence over the past decade.

Wang Wei, vice president of the Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee, called the attacks the work of "East Turkistan terrorists" and said no government would tolerate such violence. "East Turkestan" is the name some separatists have used to refer to Xinjiang.

"The very purpose of these attacks is all about separating the region from China," Wang said at a daily Olympic media briefing. He said the attackers "want to use the Olympic stage to enlarge the impact."

Authorities sealed off the area where the violence happened in Kuqa. Soldiers with machine guns patrolled the streets and people were told not to leave their homes.

A man who answered the phone at the Kuqa government's duty office said he was not aware of the explosions and refused to give his name. Repeated calls to the county's public security bureau rang unanswered.

A woman on duty at the emergency unit of the Kuqa People's Hospital said one man was pronounced dead upon arrival and others were being treated, but she gave no details.

"There were several explosions in several places in the county seat of Kuqa this morning, and we heard them from the hospital," said the woman, who would only give her last name, Tian.

A Western tourist in Kuqa, who did not want his name or nationality mentioned for fear of the response from Chinese authorities, said he heard the explosions while he was in bed reading, around 2:30 a.m.

"I heard some bombs and then I heard some machine guns," he said. "The bombs sounded like thunder far away."

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