BEIJING — Chinese authorities named a pair of suspects from a heavily Muslim western region of the country as suspicions grew that a deadly car crash and fire near Tiananmen Square was a terror attack.
Five people were dead after the vehicle plowed through dozens of pedestrians and police at the center of the capital city at lunchtime Monday.
Strengthening suspicions it was an act of terror by Muslims from China’s northwest, the Beijing police issued a notice late Monday to hotels in the Chinese capital that named two suspects from the Xinjiang region, according to the text of the notice posted online by some Chinese Internet users, and reported Tuesday by the Global Times, a Communist Party-run newspaper.
Xinjiang, a huge area of desert and mountain in Chinese Central Asia, has witnessed regular unrest in recent years involving the Muslim Uighur ethnic group, now only a slim majority of Xinjiang’s population after decades of immigration by China’s majority Han people.
The Uighur have long complained about repressive rule by Beijing. The Chinese government argues it has brought badly-needed development, and says violent incidents there are fomented by ‘hostile foreign forces’.
The two named suspects are both male, with Uighur-sounding names. One is aged 25
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