A young Uygur woman has confessed to an attempt to hijack and crash a passenger plane from Urumqi , Xinjiang, this month as part of a terrorist plot, the Ministry of Public Security said online yesterday.
Turdi Guzalinur, a 19-year-old Islamic passenger, admitted to boarding the plane with a hidden bomb that could bring down the aircraft; deceiving security personnel at the Urumqi airport; and trying to carry out a terrorist attack on March 7, the statement said.
Police arrested her and another suspect after the plane, bound for Beijing, made an emergency landing at Zhongchuan airport in Lanzhou, Gansu province .
Other suspects were arrested in Xinjiang.
'The police investigation has shown that it was a planned and organised terrorist attack on an air traffic vehicle,' the statement said.
But the central government's statement was vague about how many suspects were arrested and the nature of any potential overseas connections.
'With the evidence at hand, we can only say [the attempt] was planned and organised, nothing more,' a ministry spokeswoman said.
