LOC11:10
08:10 GMT
Map of Xinjiang
TOKYO, May 27 (KUNA) -- Police in northwest China's Muslim-majority Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region have seized 1.8 tons of material for explosive devices and caught five suspects in a raid, the official Xinhua News Agency reported Tuesday.
An alleged terror and extremist group led by Abliz Dawut was busted by police in south Xinjiang's Hotan Prefecture on Monday, a statement from the regional publicity department said, according to the report.
Suspects allegedly watched and listened to terror videos and audio and collected material to make explosive devices, the statement said, adding that the devices were hidden in Hotan.
Abliz and his gang members are suspected of making detonation devices the night after the terror attack on a market in Xinjiang's capital of Urumqi on May 22 and premeditating a similar terror attack in crowded locations in Hotan Prefecture, it said.
Similar raids were carried out in three other prefectures on Monday, leading to the arrest of a group of suspects allegedly involved in terrorist attacks, the spreading of terror videos and audio, illegal production of explosives and illegal immigration.
Some 23 terror and religious extremism groups were busted and more than 200 suspects were caught in May in south Xinjiang, the regional public security department said on Sunday.
In 2013, the East Turkistan Islamic Movement, listed by the UN Security Council as a terrorist group, produced 107 terror videos and audio files, some of which were spread to China, according to the regional public security department.
Many of the terror suspects caught in recent years were instigated by the terror videos and audio to carry out terrorist activities, it said.
Thirty-nine innocent people were killed in the May 22 Urumqi terrorist attack. On the next day, Xinjiang started a one-year campaign against terrorist violence, which will last until June 2015. 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. (end)
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