BEIJING: Assailants killed at least 31 people on Thursday when they ploughed two vehicles into a market and threw explosives in the capital of China’s Xinjiang region, in what authorities called the latest “severe terrorist incident” to hit the Muslim Uighur homeland.

More than 90 people were also wounded when two off-road vehicles drove into a crowd in Urumqi, with one of them exploding, the regional government’s Tianshan web portal said, in an attack with echoes of a fiery car crash in Tiananmen Square last year.

China has seen a series of incidents in recent months targeting civilians, sometimes far from Xinjiang itself, which authorities have blamed on separatists from the region.

Pictures posted on Sina Weibo, a Chinese equivalent of Twitter, showed victims lying in a tree-lined street, as others sat on flimsy stools.

Flames rose in the background, while other images showed smoke billowing over market stalls behind a police roadblock. None of the photographs could immediately be verified.

Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged to “severely punish violent terrorists”, maintain a “strike first” policy and “crack down on them with a heavy fist”, state broadcaster CCTV said.

Beijing says it faces terrorism from a violent separatist movement in Xinjiang, driven by religious extremism and foreign groups.

Tianshan described the attack as a “severe, violent terrorist incident”. “Thugs broke through protective metal barrier by driving two vehicles, colliding with the crowd and detonating explosive devices, causing the deaths of 31 people and injuring 94,” it said.

A witness at the market told the official news agency Xinhua he heard a dozen “big bangs” during the attack at about 7.50am when Chinese morning markets are commonly crowded with shoppers seeking fresh groceries.

“I saw flames and heavy smoke as vehicles and goods were on fire while vendors escaped leaving their goods behind,” wrote one witness who said he was less than 100 metres from the scene.

China has repeatedly blamed violence in the region on separatist groups seeking independence for Xinjiang, but few analysts consider there have been any credible claims of responsibility for the attacks.

On April 30, the final day of a visit by Xi to the region, assailants armed with knives and explosives carried out an attack at a railway station in Urumqi, killing one person and wounding 79. Two attackers also died.

Published in Dawn, May 23rd, 2014