28 ‘terrorist group members’ killed in E.Turkestan

Radio Free Asia, which first reported the incident about two months ago, said at least 50 people had died.

The deaths took place over a 56-day operation in which one person was detained, Xinjiang government’s web portal Tianshan reported.

“After 56 days of continuous fighting, Xinjiang destroyed a violent terrorist gang directly under the command of a foreign extremist group, the news portal report said”.

Police then began a daily manhunt that involved more than 10,000 citizens and police searching an area of 1,300 square kilometers.

Beijing has struggled for decades with a long-simmering separatist movement in Xinjiang made up of members of the Turkic-speaking, mainly Muslim Uighur ethnic group.

The terrorist group was directly guided by an overseas extremists group and led by two local Xinjiang males named Musa Tohniyaz and Mamat Aysa, the statement said, adding the name of the organization can not be disclosed as investigations are still underway.

Exiled Uyghur groups and human rights activists say China’s repressive policies in Xinjiang, which include strict controls on Islam and Uyghur culture, have provoked the unrest.

Beginning in 2008, its members began watching extremist videos and communicated six times with radical elements outside of China’s borders, requesting tactical guidance, the paper said.

“Members of this foreign extremist group transmitted orders to the gang many times and demanded pledges of loyalty”, it said, without elaborating. Officials in Xinjiang declined to comment.

But overseas experts doubt the strength of the groups and their links to global terrorism, with a few saying China exaggerates the threat to justify tough security measures in the resource-rich region.

Pictures showed farmers armed with wooden batons and farm tools, and a helicopter that was also deployed in the operation.

China says that it too is threatened by groups like Islamic State, which announced this week it had killed a Chinese hostage.

Following the Paris attacks, countries in Europe have been cracking down on Islamic State fighters posing as refugees.