China vows to crush ETIM terrorists trained in Pak

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China today vowed to crush the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM) militants trained in Pakistan even as the state media highlighted their role in fomenting militancy in the strategic Xinjiang province.

A day after attacks by ETIM terrorists claimed 22 lives in the province, Chairman of the Xinjiang regional government Nur Bekri said that the authorities would go all out to counter the violence and terrorist suspects would be given severe punishments.

For the first time, China has blamed Uygur 'militants' trained in Pakistan for the deadly violence.

The authorities classified Sunday's attack as an act of terrorism and blamed ETIM for engineering the attack, state-run Xinhua news agency said.

Bekri, while visiting the injured in hospitals in Kashghar city, called on Han and Uygur ethnic groups to unite in the face of tragedy.

About 22 people, including two ETIM suspects, were killed in different incidents since Saturday in which militants armed with knives and daggers attacked Han settlers in Kashghar city, located close to Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir, (PoK).

Xinjiang's capital Urumqi witnessed massive riots against Hans in 2009, that left almost 200 people dead.

In two violent incidents last weekend, 14 civilians and six militants were killed in Kashgar, throwing the city into panic.

On Sunday, six civilians were killed, and 15 others - including three policemen - were injured after attackers set fire to a restaurant and started randomly killing civilians on a major shopping street.