China will deploy more "anti-terrorism forces" to its far north-west Xinjiang region following a series of deadly attacks there, state media said Friday. Public security minister Meng Jianzhu told officials in Xinjiang that stability in the remote region was important for China's "overall security and unification," according to comments carried by the Global Times newspaper.
Meng said more "anti-terrorism forces" would be sent to Xinjiang to boost security, although no details were given. There is already a heavy armed police presence in Kashgar, a famed city on the ancient Silk Road in Xinjiang, following two attacks on a busy restaurant and a night market last weekend that authorities said left 13 people dead.
Eight of the alleged attackers were also killed. Chinese authorities blamed one of the attacks on "terrorists" trained in camps in neighbouring Pakistan, and have pledged to "crack down on religious extremists". Many of Xinjiang's roughly nine million Turkic-speaking Uighurs are unhappy with what they say has been decades of political and religious repression, and the unwanted immigration of China's dominant Han ethnic group.
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