Terror fight 'must be intensified'

A victim is taken to the General Hospital of Armed Police in Urumqi on Thursday. [Photo/Xinhua]

The latest attack in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region highlights the need to intensify the fight against the growing threat of terrorism at multiple levels, according to security analysts and experts.

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Ma Pinyan, a senior anti-terrorism researcher, said there had been a growing number of attacks and there was also the possibility that more people had become terrorists despite a crackdown on extremist activities in recent years.

"Not enough efforts are being made to solve terrorism at its roots," said Ma, deputy director of the Ethnic and Religious Study Center at Xinjiang Academy of Social Sciences.

"The ideological basis for terrorism is religious extremism. The extremists have increased their efforts to indoctrinate people."

On Thursday morning, two cars without license plates plowed into people at an open-air market in Urumqi, the regional capital, with the occupants throwing explosives into the crowds.

The attack killed 31 people and injured at least 94 others. The Ministry of Public Security described it as "an extremely severe terrorist incident".

It was the second terrorist attack in Urumqi in less than a month. On April 30, a railway station explosion killed three people, including two attackers, and injured 79 others.

Xinjiang Party chief Zhang Chunxian said in March that the penetration of religious extremism had led to more attacks.

Tourism decline

Meng Nan, a Central Asian studies researcher at Xinjiang University, said the terrorists had become more focused and sophisticated in their attacks.

They chose the morning market for the latest attack because they could cause maximum panic, Meng said.

The attacks in Xinjiang would trigger a decline in the number of tourists to the region during the peak season, he said.

Besides economic damage, such attacks "can attract the attention of anti-China forces in the West, who will support the terrorists with funding or weapons", Meng added.