Assassination of Juma Tayir

China has appointed its first counter-terrorism chief, state media said on Dec. 21, as it wages a controversial campaign to stamp out ethnic violence linked to the western Xinjiang region.

China will maintain "heavy pressure" to defeat militants in its far western region of Xinjiang, China's fourth most senior leader said during a visit to its ethnic Uighur heartland, urging religious figures to take the lead in opposing extremism. 

At least five police officers have been stabbed to death by separatists in a knife attack at a coal mine in China's violence-prone far western region of Xinjiang, U.S.-based Radio Free Asia reported on Sept.23.

The incident happened on Sept.18 at the Sogan colliery in Aksu, the report said, citing police from the area. Dozens were also injured, it said. 

China has no "ethnic problem" in its far west, and Muslim Uighur minorities there enjoy freedom of religion, the Foreign Ministry said on July 6, following anti-China protests in Turkey over Beijing's treatment of the group.