2014 Kunming attack

At 21:12 on 1 March 2014, a group of five individuals, all dressed in black clothes and armed with knives and cleavers, rushed into a waiting area of Kunming railway station, attacking people indiscriminately. From their starting point, the group moved separately through the station square, the second ticket area, the ticket main hall, and the small baggage storage area. Witnesses described two of the attackers, who lingered at the ticket counters as a man and a woman, both around 30 years old and 170 cm in height, the former slightly overweight with medium hair and the latter wearing a headscarf. Several people hid in various businesses at the station, which were protected by roller shutters. A post office with five security guards first sheltered 40 people, with the number growing to nearly a hundred by the time the attack was resolved. Chen Fang stated that nearly 200 people were hiding inside her restaurant for an hour, with many having to stand on tables, chairs, and the kitchen's stoves. Several dozen people shared a hiding spot in the restroom. The attack lasted around twelve minutes. At around 21:35, all five attackers were surrounded at the intersection of Beijing Road and Yongping Road. Police initially attempted to subdue the attackers using tear-gas shells but were unable to do so. The sole member of the team with an automatic weapon shot five of the attackers in rapid succession, killing four of them, after two warning shots were fired. A wounded female suspect was detained at the scene and sent to a hospital. Traveller Zuo Ruoxing, who was travelling with his friend Pan Huabing, also recalled seven or eight men, with one attempting to stab Pan's daughter, though the girl's father ended up taking the fatal injury to the throat. Personnel at the Changshui International Airport also held an emergency meeting and tightened security though they stated that they were operating normally. There were scattered news reports suggesting that similar attacks occurred in Dashuying () in the Jinma subdistrict of Kunming, but local police stated that reports of "several places suffering attacks" were only rumors. == Casualties ==

The assailants killed 31 people and injured 143 (including seven policemen). Two security guards, identified by their surnames Liu and Ding, were killed while attempting to subdue the perpetrators. The wounded were transported in public buses == Aftermath ==

The Red Cross Society of China sent a team to Yunnan in the morning of 2 March to support the Yunnan Red Cross Society in assisting with rescue efforts and to provide counseling to the relatives of victims and shocked civilians. On 2 March, armed police patrolled the area around Kunming Railway Station. In the early morning, locals put flowers on the square in front of the station to mourn the dead. At 13:00, the Kunming Police disclosed information on two suspects, one woman and one man, according to statements of witnesses. In the aftermath of the attack, heavy police presence was noted in Dashuying, a low-income ghetto that houses many of Kunming's Uyghurs, and local residents were questioned by police. Yunnan's Communist Party Secretary Qin Guangrong said on 4 March that he had allocated sufficient resources to help the victims, who would not have to bear medical costs. Emergency services had processed the injured, and compensation arrangements were being discussed. Qin said that the absence of a clear threat up to that point meant terrorism prevention had not been a high priority in Yunnan. He admitted to inadequacies in resources, policing and intelligence gathering. == Investigation ==

On 3 March the Ministry of Public Security announced that police had arrested three suspects and said that an eight-person terrorist group was responsible for the attack, with five direct perpetrators and three others involved only in plotting. The attackers were named as Abdurehim Kurban, Ahmat Abiti, Mangshar Shartar, Almira Tursun, and Patigul Tohti. Kurban was identified as the leader of the group, while Tohti, pregnant at the time of the attack, was the sole surviving member. Voice of America, a news network owned by the United States government, claimed that there had been scant information from official sources as to the identities, or even evidence that the attackers were Uyghurs. Qin Guangrong said that the captured wounded suspect had confessed to the crime. He asserted the group, composed of thirteen people, was founded in December 2013, with the goal of participating in jihad abroad. The sources claimed that after witnessing the capture of fellow Uyghurs attempting to flee China into Laos, the group became desperate because of their lack of identity papers along with being on the run from police. Five others, Yimin Mulla, Yusufu Yasen, Balati Abdusaimaiti, Ali Yimin, and Salam Mamut, were also tried as part of the group in separate proceedings. ==Reactions==

Domestic After the terrorist attack, Chinese Communist Party (CCP) general secretary Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang assigned Meng Jianzhu, Secretary of the Central Politics and Law Commission, to oversee the investigation. There was some coverage in the regional press; local Kunming Times carried the story on its front page. But the South China Morning Post (SCMP) remarked that the China Central Television evening news programme as well as other national media did not report the attack. Coverage was also scant in the Southern Metropolis Daily in Guangzhou and the Yangtse Evening Post. Whilst China Daily noted the appeals by netizens to "stop circulating bloody pictures", microblogged and social media-hosted images of the carnage were swiftly deleted by censors. Jin Canrong of Renmin University suggested the way forward would be to de-emphasise Uyghur ethnicity and try to instill a greater sense of "Chineseness", stressing equal obligations and rights as Chinese citizens, while Barry Sautman, a China expert at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, suggested widening the preferential policies and granting Xinjiang Uyghurs greater autonomy. This assertion has been echoed by officials in Kunming. A Legal Daily video clip that broadcast on CCTV News on 3 March featured an interview with the SWAT marksman who was responsible for shooting five of the attackers and applauded his heroism. The officer said that as the assailants rushed towards him ignoring warning shots fired, he shot the five in about 15 seconds "without thinking". China accused Western commentators of hypocrisy and double standards on terrorism. Chinese citizens followed that with criticism against the United States government for refusing to identify the attack as a terrorist attack, with some comparing it against the Chinese response to the Boston Marathon bombing. The ''People's Daily, the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, accused Western media of ambivalence and failing to state unequivocally that the attack was an act of terrorism, saying, "These media are always the loudest when it comes to anti-terrorism, but in the Kunming train station terrorist violence they lost their voice and spoke confusedly, making people angry," and named American news outlets CNN, The Associated Press, The New York Times and The Washington Post'' as examples. International The UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the Security Council separately condemned the attack. Many countries condemned the attack, and expressed their deepest sympathy and condolences. Dilxat Rexit, a spokesman for the World Uyghur Congress, deplored the attacks, and urged the Chinese government to "ease systematic repression". The Diplomat pointed to use of the comparison to 9–11 as referring not so much to the scale of the attack but the effect that this would have on the nation's psyche, saying "there are hints that it may have a similar effect on the way China conceptualizes and deals with terrorism". Rebiya Kadeer, President of the World Uyghur Congress, called on the Chinese government to rationally handle the attacks and "not to demonize Uighur people as enemies of the state". The Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang responded by condemning the WUC as "an anti-China separatist organization", saying that the WUC "cannot represent Uyghur people" and that Kadeer "showed her ulterior political motive by linking the terrorist incidents at Kunming together with a particular ethnic group". The Daily Telegraph mentioned that this was the first time Uyghurs had been blamed for carrying out an attack of such magnitude outside of Xinjiang. The Analects column of The Economist asserted that although the alleged group leader's name suggests he may be a Uyghur, this would be difficult to verify in a country where media are state-controlled and officials tightly control information flows. It responded to Chinese commentators who criticised outsiders for not immediately accepting official Chinese assertion of an act of politically motivated terrorism by Xinjiang separatists by saying: "But China, which prefers to play down the role of its policies in Xinjiang in generating discontent, has long sought to discredit its Uygur critics by linking them to terrorism". The Economist also mentioned "Chinese oppression in Xinjiang" that "hit at the heart of Uighur identity" as a factor in the escalating violence, including: "students are banned from fasting during Ramadan, religious teaching for children is restricted, and Uighur-language education is limited". Yet according to Dawn, China only discourages fasting for Uygur Muslims and encourages people to eat properly for study and work but authorities "don't force anyone to eat during Ramadan". Rohan Gunaratna, a terrorism expert at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, said there had been intelligence failure. He estimated that "in the last 12 months there have been over 200 attacks [in Xinjiang], maybe even more. It is getting worse". == Aftermath ==

The family members of 3 of the killed security personnel each received 690,000 renminbi in compensation. For the safety of their families, the identities of 15 victims who attempted to prevent the terrorist attack were anonymized. Effects on Chinese police The 2014 Kunming attack was cited by Shanghai police as one of the main reasons that police in Shanghai were allowed to patrol with personal firearms. ==See also==