BEIJING China yesterday denied the north-west region of Xinjiang bad been hit by a new bomb attack after three bus bombings last week killed seven people and hurt more than 60.
"It's peaceful here. There's been no untoward incident," a government official in Yining, or Kuldji, said by telephone.
Mr Mukhiddin Mukhlisi, an exiled spokesman for Uighur nationalists, said in the Kazakh capital, Almaty, that his group had bombed a Chinese bus in Kuldji on Monday in reprisal for Beijing government measures against the Muslim ethnic group. "There have been a lot of rumours like this recently. . . There was no new bomb attack," another official said.
Mr Mukhlisi accused the Chinese police and army of killing 127 Uighurs and arresting hundreds more in a campaign against nationalists seeking an independent homeland, which he said was launched last month.