Violence in China\'s Muslim-dominant Xinjiang kills 16 people

Sixteen people, including two police officers, were killed in a violent clash in northwest China's Muslim-majority Xinjiang region less than two months after an attack in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, state media reported Monday. Police were attacked by several "thugs" armed with explosive devices and knives on Sunday night when they were pursuing "criminal suspects" in Shufu county of Kashgar prefecture in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, according to the Tianshan Net run by the provincial government. Two policemen died in the attack while 14 attackers were shot and killed, the report said, adding that two criminal suspects were detained. The incident comes after the attack in Tiananmen Square late October, in which three ethnic Uygurs from Xinjiang drove a jeep to crash into a crowd of people, killing two people and injuring another 40, which Chinese police said "carefully planned, organized and premeditated attack." The three in the jeep died after they set gasoline inside the vehicle on fire. About 41.5 percent of Xinjiang's 21 million population are Uygurs, a largely Muslim ethnic group. Located in a volatile region, Xinjiang has been battling separatism, extremism and terrorism since China took control of the area in 1949. During its most deadly unrest in decades, 197 people were killed and about 1,700 others injured in the July 2009 riot.