Aksu is a city in and the seat of Aksu Prefecture, Xinjiang, lying at the northern edge of the Tarim Basin. The name Aksu literally means "white water" and is used for both the oasis town and the Aksu River.
Aksu Prefecture is located in mid-Western Xinjiang, China. It has an area of 131,161 km2 (50,642 sq mi) and 2.714 million inhabitants at the 2020 census whom 715,319 lived in the built-up area made up of Aksu urban district. The name Aksu is Turkic for 'white water'. Aksu Prefecture has a 263.8 km (163.9 mi) long international boundary with Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.
Xinhe County as the official romanized name, also formerly known as its Uyghur name Toksu County, is a county in Aksu Prefecture, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, China.
Onsu County and from Mandarin Chinese Wensu County, is a county in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and is under the administration of the Aksu Prefecture, bordering Kyrgyzstan's Issyk-Kul Region to the northwest. It contains an area of 14,309 km2 (5,525 sq mi).
Yuli County as the official Romanized name, also transliterated from Mongolian as Lopnur County, is a county in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and is under the administration of the Bayin'gholin Mongol Autonomous Prefecture. It contains an area of 59,399 km2 (22,934 sq mi). According to the 2002 census, it has a population of 100,000.
Karakax County, alternatively Moyu County, also transliterated from Uyghur as Qaraqash County, alternately Qaraqash, is a county in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and is located in the southern edge of the Tarim Basin, it is under the administration of the Hotan Prefecture. It contains an area of 25,667 km2 (9,910 sq mi). According to the 2011 census it has a population of 577,000 and 98,1% are Uyghurs. The county is bordered to the north by Awat County in Aksu Prefecture, to the northeast by Lop County, to the southeast by Hotan County, to the northwest by Maralbexi County in Kashgar Prefecture, and to the southwest by Pishan County and Kunyu. Exclaves of Kunyu are located within the county.
Terrorism in China refers to the use of terrorism to cause a political or ideological change in the People's Republic of China. The definition of terrorism differs among scholars, between international and national bodies and across time and there is no legally binding definition internationally. In the cultural setting of China, the term is relatively new and ambiguous.
The 2008 Uyghur unrest is a loose name for incidents of communal violence by Uyghur people in Hotan and Qaraqash county of Western China, with incidents in March, April, and August 2008. The protests were spurred by the death in police custody of Mutallip Hajim.
The 2008 Kashgar attack occurred on the morning of 4 August 2008, in the city of Kashgar in the Western Chinese province of Xinjiang. According to Chinese government sources, it was a terrorist attack perpetrated by two men with suspected ties to the Uyghur separatist movement. The men reportedly drove a truck into a group of jogging police officers, and proceeded to attack them with grenades and machetes, resulting in the death of sixteen officers.
A series of violent riots over several days broke out on 5 July 2009 in Ürümqi, the capital city of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), in northwestern China. The first day's rioting, which involved at least 1,000 Uyghurs, began as a protest, but escalated into violent attacks that mainly targeted Han people. According to Chinese state media, a total of 197 people died, most of whom were Han people or non-Muslim minorities, with 1,721 others injured and many vehicles and buildings destroyed. Many Uyghurs disappeared during wide-scale police sweeps in the days following the riots; Human Rights Watch (HRW) documented 43 cases and said figures for real disappearances were likely to be much higher.
The Shaoguan incident was a civil disturbance which took place overnight on 25–26 June 2009 in Guangdong, China. A violent dispute erupted between migrant Uyghurs and Han Chinese workers at a toy factory in Shaoguan as a result of false allegations of the sexual assault of a Han Chinese woman. Groups of Han Chinese set upon Uyghur co-workers, leading to at least two Uyghurs being violently killed by angry Han Chinese men, and some 118 people injured, most of them Uyghurs.
In September 2009, Ürümqi, the capital of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in the People's Republic of China, experienced a period of unrest in the aftermath of the July 2009 Ürümqi riots. Late August and early September saw a series of syringe attacks on civilians. In response to the attacks, thousands of residents held protests for several days, resulting in the deaths of five people. In addition, the arrest and beating of several Hong Kong journalists during the protests attracted international attention.
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.
The 2011 Kashgar attacks were a series of knife and bomb attacks in Kashgar, Xinjiang, China on July 30 and 31, 2011. On July 30, two Uyghur men hijacked a truck, killed its driver, and drove into a crowd of pedestrians. They got out of the truck and stabbed six people to death and injured 27 others. One of the attackers was killed by the crowd; the other was brought into custody. On July 31, a chain of two explosions started a fire at a downtown restaurant. A group of armed Uyghur men killed two people inside of the restaurant and four people outside, injuring 15 other people. Police shot five suspects dead, detained four, and killed two others who initially escaped arrest.
The Pishan hostage crisis occurred on the night of December 28, 2011, in Koxtag, Pishan/Guma County, Hotan Prefecture, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China. A group of 15 ethnic Uyghur youths kidnapped two goat shepherds for directions near the Indian and Pakistan borders. They were soon confronted by a group of five Pishan policemen, who tried to negotiate for the shepherds' release. This led to a shootout in which a police officer and 7 hostage-takers were killed. Another police officer was injured, and 4 suspects were taken into custody. Both of the hostages were rescued by police.
The 2012 Yecheng attack was a terrorist attack by Uyghur separatist extremists that occurred on February 28, 2012, in Yecheng, Xinjiang, a remote town situated about 150 miles from China's border with Pakistan. Details of the attack are disputed: according to Chinese government reports and court documents, at around 6 p.m. that day, a group of eight Uyghur men led by religious extremist Abudukeremu Mamuti attacked pedestrians with axes and knives on Happiness Road. Local police fought with the attackers, ultimately killing all and capturing Mamuti. State-run media reported that one police officer died and four police were injured, while 15 pedestrians died from Mamuti's assault and 14 more civilians were injured. Chinese officials characterized the event as a "terrorist attack."
The Xinjiang conflict, also known as the East Turkistan conflict, Uyghur–Chinese conflict or Sino-East Turkistan conflict, is an ethnic geopolitical conflict in what is now China's far-northwest autonomous region of Xinjiang, also known as East Turkistan. It is centred around the Uyghurs, a Turkic ethnic group who constitute a plurality of the region's population.
On 30 April 2014, a bomb-and-knife attack occurred in the Chinese city of Ürümqi, Xinjiang. The terrorist attack killed 3 people, and injured 79 others. The attack coincided with the conclusion of a visit by Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party to the region.
On the morning of 22 May 2014, two sport utility vehicles (SUVs) carrying five assailants were driven into a busy street market in Ürümqi, the capital of China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. Up to a dozen explosives were thrown at shoppers from the windows of the SUVs. The SUVs crashed into shoppers, then collided with each other and exploded. Forty three people were killed, including four of the assailants; more than 90 were wounded, making this the deadliest attack of the Xinjiang conflict. The event was designated as a terrorist attack.
On the early morning of Wednesday, 30 July 2014, Juma Tahir, the imam of China's largest mosque, the Id Kah Mosque in northwestern Kashgar, was stabbed to death by three young male Uyghur extremists. Religious leaders across denominations condemned the attack.
