China explosion at a railway station leaves 3 dead and 79 injured. The train station is in the Western region of Xinjiang. The bombing attack Wednesday came as President Xi Jinping wrapped up a four-day visit to the area.
CCTV is labeling this explosion as a terrorist attack. According to CCTV, assailants attacked people with knives and detonated bombs at the same time at the Urumqi South Station in Xinjiang . Train service was suspended for roughly 2 hours after the China explosion and only reopened under the watchful eye of armed police. For years tensions have been tight between the Muslim Uighur minority group and resident Chinese.
In 2009, several riots erupted in Urumqi which left nearly 200 people perished according to official figures. Despite increased police and military presence, violence continues to be a problem in the region and as of 2013 began spreading to other parts of China.
Last year, in a suicide attack, three Muslim Uighurs rammed a vehicle into crowds near the Forbidden City gate in Beijing killing themselves and two tourists.
This past March, five men and women armed with knives slashed at people in crowds without a target in southwestern China. This attack killed 29 people. Chinese government says the attack s carried out by secession seeking terrorists . This China explosion is clearly an escalation of violence in an area that is already charged with racial and religious strife. Chinese President Xi said,
Local police stations are the fists and the daggers. We must work hard at the grass-roots level of the police stations. We must take care of our front-line offices. You need to protect yourselves and make achievements at tasks such as better serving the people in the future and safeguarding social stability.
Xi also eluded to a “strike first” policy against terrorism.
This is just one in a long line of China explosions. One such attack occurring November, 2013 where an explosion killed one and injured eight according to Chinese news media. These bombs were smaller in scale and detonated near a Communist party building.
China has been in a long, silent fight with terrorists and will continue to fight back and even to sniff out terrorists hiding in their country. As time goes on, we may very well see larger scale China explosions.