BEIJING, Feb. 29 (UPI) -- Chinese's northwestern region of Xinjiang has seen a series of deadly clashes between Uighur, ethnic Han Chinese and police, officials said.
China's state-run news agency Xinhua reported that "a few rioters" armed with knives attacked "victims" in Yecheng county in Kashgar prefecture, killing 10 people, Radio Free Asia said.
Police killed "two assailants" and "are chasing the rest" in the aftermath of the latest fighting, which happened around 6 p.m. Tuesday, Xinhua reported.
Xinhua quoted witnesses as saying that the "violent mobs chopped the victims."
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Radio Free Asia said it received an e-mail message from an unnamed Uighur saying the clashes started in a local market by three Han Chinese men who insulted a Uighur youth. A group of people aged around 18 years attacked the three Han Chinese, resulting in their death, the message said.
"Armed police then came in and killed 12 Uighur youths," the message said.
Radio Free Asia said the Xinhua account and details contained in the Uighur e-mail message couldn't be independently verified.
Around 8 million Turkic-speaking, mostly Muslim Uighur live in Xinjiang, in China's northwest, and many say they are unhappy about the large influx of Han Chinese settlers, whom the Uighurs say increasingly marginalize their interests and culture.
The latest deaths come after fighting in July in which 15 people died in what Xinhua said at the time was "a severely violent terrorism case."
Trouble began with two explosions, one in a parked van and one in a food market. Two men later fatally stabbed a truck driver and then drove the vehicle into a crowd. They also attacked bystanders with knives.
Six people in the crowd were killed and 28 others were hurt, police said. At least one of the attackers was killed by the crowd. Four suspects were killed by police, who continued to hunt for suspects, Xinhua reported.
But tensions in the region have remained high after nearly 200 people died and more than 1,700 were injured in clashes that rocked Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region in July 2009.
Chinese authorities clamped down after the 2009 riots and after last summer's clashes. More stop-and-search stations were set up and thousands of public surveillance cameras were set up around the city.
Local government officials blamed the 2009 riots on unemployed Uighur migrants living in nearly 50 shantytowns across the city. Beijing also said the riots were planned abroad by the World Uighur Congress, which Chinese officials say is a terrorist organization and whose president, Rebiya Kadeer, 63, is also a terrorist.
