2011 Hotan attack | |
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Part of Xinjiang conflict | |
Location | Hotan, Xinjiang, China |
Date | 18 July 2011 12:00 p.m. – 1:30 p.m. (UTC+08:00) |
Target | Police, civilians |
Attack type | Invasion of police station, hostage crisis |
Weapons | Molotov cocktails, grenades, knives |
Deaths | 18 (14 attackers, two security personnel, two hostages) |
Injured | Four hostages |
Perpetrators | East Turkestan Islamic Movement |
Defenders | Nuerbage Street police station |
2011 Hotan attack | |||||||||
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Simplified Chinese | 和田骚乱 | ||||||||
Traditional Chinese | 和阗骚乱 | ||||||||
Literal meaning | Hotan incident | ||||||||
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Alternate name | |||||||||
Chinese | 和田7·18严重暴力恐怖事件 | ||||||||
Literal meaning | Hotan July 18th serious violent terrorist incident | ||||||||
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The 2011 Hotan attack was a bomb-and-knife attack that occurred in Hotan, Xinjiang, China on 18 July 2011. According to witnesses, the assailants were a group of 18 young Uyghur men who opposed the local government's campaign against the burqa, which had grown popular among older Hotan women in 2009 but were also used in a series of violent crimes. The men occupied a police station on Nuerbage Street at noon, killing two security guards with knives and bombs and taking eight hostages. The attackers then yelled religious slogans, including ones associated with Jihadism, as they replaced the Chinese flag on top of a police station with another flag, the identity of which is disputed.
After a firefight with police around 1:30 p.m., 14 attackers were killed, and 4 were captured. 6 of the hostages were rescued alive, while 2 were killed in the attack. Local and national governments said the attack was organized terrorism motivated by religious extremism, and found that two of the attackers have links to the militant East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM). A team from China's counter-terrorism office was sent to Hotan to investigate the attack. ETIM acknowledged responsibility for the attack on 8 September, as well as for the attacks in Kashgar later that same July. later in September, 6 men received prison or death sentences for their involvement in both attacks.