Chinese city locks down after bombings

KUQA, China – Soldiers with machine guns guarded the sidewalks and police yelled at residents who tried to leave their homes in China’s restive Muslim territory Sunday, hours after officers battled bomb-tossing assailants in the second daring attack in a week in the region far from the Beijing Olympics.

The attackers were able to launch a series of pre-dawn bombings in this west-central part of the rugged Xinjiang region despite tightened security for the games. The violence — which police say killed 10 assailants and one security guard — also came just days after a militant Islamic group linked to al-Qaeda issued a new warning it would strike during the Olympics.

No group has claimed responsibility for Sunday’s attack in Kuqa county, and police have not released any evidence that a terrorist organization was involved. But tensions in Xinjiang have been simmering for decades between the Muslim minority Uighur people and the Han Chinese who make up about 90 percent of the nation’s population.