Three people died and 79 others were injured, four seriously, in a suspected terror attack Wednesday in China's restive northwestern region.
The incident spurred the
nation's President Xi Jinping -- who was completing a four-day tour to
the area -- to vow action against separatist attacks, state news
reported.
An explosion rocked the
South Railway Station of Urumqi, capital of China's Xinjiang Uyghur
Autonomous Region, followed by a knife attack at the same location
.
Xinhua announced the casualty toll via Twitter early Thursday, as well as Xi's urging "decisive actions" in response.
"The battle to combat
violence and terrorism will not allow even a moment of slackness, and
decisive actions must be taken to resolutely suppress the terrorists'
rampant momentum," state-owned media reported Xi as saying.
Xinhua, quoting police,
also said "knife-wielding mobs" attacked people at one of the station's
exits following the blast, which occurred around 7 p.m. Wednesday.
Police evacuated people
from the square in front of the station, deployed armed officers and
cordoned off entrances to the station, where train services had been
suspended.
The station reopened about two hours later. with passengers re-entering under a heavily-armed police presence.
Frequent outbreaks of
violence have beset Xinjiang, a resource-rich region where the arrival
of waves of Han Chinese people over the decades has fueled sectarian
tensions with the Uyghurs, a Turkic-speaking, predominantly Muslim
ethnic group.
China was shocked in March as a violent terror attack in another train station, in Kunming, saw 10 men armed with long knives kill 29 commuters.
The fight against separatist violence in the autonomous region was a focus of the Chinese leader's visit.
During his tour, Xi visited security forces and watched an anti-terror drill, Hong Kong's South China Morning Post reported.
"The battle to combat
violence and terrorism will not allow even a moment of slackness, and
decisive actions must be taken to resolutely suppress the terrorists'
rampant momentum," Xinhua quoted Xi as saying during his tour.
He also stressed the
importance of "long-term stability" in the region as "vital to the whole
country's reform, development and stability; to the country's unity,
ethnic harmony and national security as well as to the great revival of
Chinese nation."
Speaking to local
officials, the President called for national unity and opposition to
separatism. He said China will use a "strike-first" strategy against
militants in the region and forge policies to promote ethnic harmony.
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