Xinhua has published details of the early Sunday morning attacks in Kuqa in Xinjiang, which the agency says left eight dead — seven of whom were attackers — in a dozen bombings.
The largest attack seems to have been a suicide truck bombing of the public security bureau. Two civilians, a security guard and two of the attackers were killed, Xinhua says. A third attacker was captured. Five more attackers died in a firefight in a nearby market. Xinhua says the captured attacker said 15 people were involved in the attacks, which implies seven escaped.
Though the bombs appear to have been crude homemade ones, it is still remarkable that such attacks should have been able to have been launched given the stepped up security in the region since the killing of 16 armed police at a border post last week, and the sweeping up of any suspected pockets of resistance in the months leading up to the Olympic games. But the militants who had previously threatened to attack buses, trains and planes during the two-weeks of the Games still don’t seem to have been able to extend their operations outside Xinjiang.
Wang Wei, vice president of the Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee, called the attacks the work of “East Turkestan terrorists” the appellation applied to Uighur separatists. Wang said no government would tolerate such violence.
China Bystander 