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China: Police take last of 30 suspects alive after mine clash

CHINESE police have killed all but one of 29 suspects in an attack by gunmen on a mine in the western Xinjiang province last month.

Official website Tianshan Net reported that the remaining suspect in the September 18 attack had been arrested following a 56-day manhunt in the mountainous Asku region.

Tianshan said the assailants, which it described as gangsters, went into hiding after they killed 11 civilians and five police officers, as well as injuring 18, at the coalmine in a remote part of Asku.

The assailants made several contacts with overseas organisations before and after the attack, Tianshan said. The attack received little media coverage.

Authorities have been fighting Uighur separatists in Xinjiang for decades, including the extremist East Turkestan Islamic Movement.

Uighur nationalists in Turkey — which supports their claim to a separate state — attacked the Thai embassy in July after some 100 illegal immigrants from the province were deported in July.

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