Three 'Xinjiang terrorists' shot dead by police in China

Police in the north-eastern Chinese city of
Shenyang have shot dead three "knife-
wielding" men, state media said, calling
them Xinjiang terrorists.
A woman was also injured in the raid which took
place on Monday afternoon.
Xinjiang province, home to a significant Muslim
Uighur population, has seen several clashes and
public attacks in recent years, which police have
attributed to terrorists.
Monday's incident was one of the few such
clashes outside of Xinjiang.
Several state media outlets quoted a statement
posted on Monday night on micro-blogging site
Weibo. The account is owned by the
government of Liaoning province, whose capital
is Shenyang.
The statement appeared to have been taken
down by Tuesday morning. It remains unclear
why it was removed, but China regularly censors
online content deemed to be sensitive.
'Shouting slogans'
The statement, as reproduced in Chinese media,
said that police caught 16 "terrorism suspects" in
a raid in Shenyang.
During the raid, officers entered a rented
apartment where they "discovered Xinjiang
terrorist suspects" and were attacked by four
people "wearing headgear, holding long knives,
and shouting 'holy war' slogans," the statement
said.
Police then retreated and called for back-up. More
than 200 officers, including an anti-terrorist unit,
evacuated nearby residents and surrounded the
building. A cherry picker was used to reach the
seventh-floor apartment.
Pictures of the raid posted on a Weibo
account owned by state broadcaster CCTV
showed armed, uniformed men stationed on a
rooftop and in a cherry picker cabin.
Police said they also took into custody a 28-year-
old Uighur woman and three children.
China has seen frequent reports of deadly clashes
with police and public attacks in Xinjiang
attributed to terrorism, but few incidents have
been reported outside of the restive region.
In March 2014 a stabbing spree in Kunming city
which killed 29 people was blamed on Xinjiang
separatists, as was an October 2013 incident
where a car ploughed into a crowd and burst into
flames in Beijing's Tiananmen Square.
Rights groups have accused China of persecution
and torture of the Uighur minority, but China has
rejected such claims.