37 civilians and 59 'terrorists' died in Xinjiang attack, China says

Xinjiang authorities revealed that nearly 100 people were killed in last week's terrorist attack in a Kashgar county, as state media tacitly acknowledged the existence of an operational domestic terrorist organisation.

The shift in language, which experts told the South China Morning Post was significant, came after violence on a major road and at government facilities in remote Yarkant county, also known as Shache, last Monday.

Professor Yang Shu, an expert on Central Asia at Lanzhou University, said the attack was the largest since the July 2009 riots in Urumqi, which left 197 dead and more than 1,700 injured.

According to a meeting chaired by Xinjiang's party chief Zhang Chunxian on Saturday, police shot dead 59 assailants and detained 215 suspects. Police also seized jihadist flags, knives and axes.

Altogether 37 civilians, 35 ethnic Han and two Uygur, were killed and 13 injured during the violence. More than 30 vehicles were smashed or burnt.

The scale of the violence may explain the delay in releasing the details. Monday's attack was soon followed by the assassination of a pro-Beijing imam at Kashgar city's Id Kah Mosque on Wednesday.

While saying Monday's attack was premeditated by a gang "masterminded" by someone called Nuramat Sawut in the township of Elixku, Xinhua also said "domestic and foreign terrorist organisations had colluded" to plot the attack - a deviation from its usual wording.