World Bulletin, 24 May 2014 

Exiles and rights groups say the real cause of the unrest in East Turkestan is China’s heavy-handed policies, including curbs on Islam and the culture of Uighurs, Muslims who speak a Turkic language.

Chinese police have identified five suspects who carried out a suicide bombing in the deadliest attack in the country’s restive East Turkestan (Xinjiang) region in years, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

The report said 39 people were killed from the bombing on Thursday morning at a vegetable market in Urumqi in far western China, home to a large Muslim Uighur minority.

Police have identified the suspects as Nurahmat Ablipiz, Memet Memtimin, Raghimjan Memet, Memtimin Mahmat and Ablet Abdukadir, Xinhua said late on Friday. They all appear to be Uighur, judging by their names.

Thursday’s bombing was the second suicide attack in the capital in just over three weeks. A bomb and knife attack at an Urumqi train station in April killed a bystander and wounded 79.

China has launched a one-year crackdown to hunt down and punish Uighur seperatists, blaming them for the worsening violence in the resource-rich western region bordering central Asia. At least 180 people have been killed in attacks across China over the past year.

Exiles and rights groups say the real cause of the unrest in East Turkestan is China’s heavy-handed policies, including curbs on Islam and the culture of Uighurs, Muslims who speak a Turkic language.

The Uighurs have long complained of official discrimination in favour of the Han people, China’s majority ethnic group.

The attackers ploughed two vehicles into an open market in Urumqi and hurled explosives. Many of the 94 wounded were elderly shoppers, according to witnesses.

Four of the suspects died in the bomb attack and the other was captured by police on Thursday night, according to Xinhua.

No group has claimed responsibility for Thursday’s attack.

http://www.worldbulletin.net/news/137180/china-identifies-urumqi-bomb-suspects