BEIJING, July 21 (UPI) -- The attack on a police station in China's ethnically tense Xinjiang-Uighur region was a long-planned "severe terrorist attack," China Daily reported Thursday.
The attack this week in the far western province with a large Muslim population occurred at a police station in Hotan city, which is near the border with Pakistan.
Hou Hanmin, head of the region's information office, told China Daily the incident was "a severe terrorist attack."
"It was obviously a long-planned, unprovoked, terrorist attack, aimed at the police station," he said.
The China Daily report, citing local government investigators, said 18 rioters had slipped into the city Saturday and bought or made the knives, explosives and other weapons used in the attack.
The report quoted the head of the police station as saying: "The rioters were all men aged between 20 to 40. They spoke with accents revealing that they hailed from somewhere besides Hotan.
"The slogans the rioters shouted showed they were religious extremists."
The Washington Post, citing official reports, said 18 people, including 14 Muslim Uighur were killed during the attack. The report said those killed included a policeman, a security guard, a woman and a teenage girl, who had been among the hostages. Three other civilians were injured, six hostages were freed and four of the attackers were captured.
The Post quoted the World Uighur Congress, an exile group in Germany, as saying the protesters were trying to rally at the police station in support of detained people when the police opened fire on them. A spokesman told the Post 20 Uighurs were killed, and demanded in an independent investigation.
China Daily said police officials denied that claim. The report said police shot down the rioters within 90 minutes of the start of the attack and managed to free six hostages.
Hotan is about 96.3 percent Uighurs and 3.5 percent Han Chinese.
The region was the scene of rioting in July 2009 in the capital Urumqi, in which 197 people died and about 1,700 were injured in the worst such ethnic violence.
The Uighurs are a Turkic-speaking minority which considers Xinjiang their homeland but resent being ruled by Han Chinese.
