China media reports that 50 people have been killed in a series of explosions or shot dead by police in the far western region of Xinjiang, in what some officials are calling a terrorist attack. The dead were said to include an undisclosed number of "rioters." The Tianshan Net news portal reported that two bombs exploded at two police stations, a produce market and a store earlier this week. It said the attack killed two police officers, two police assistants and six bystanders, and injured 54 other people. Police apprehended two attackers and said one man who was shot to death was responsible for the attack, the portal reported. Ethnic tensions in Xinjiang, home of the Uighur, a Muslim minority group, have killed more than 300 people in the past year and a half. The violence occurred two days before a prominent Uighur scholar was sentenced to life in prison for "separatism."
