BEIJING: An Islamist militant group called the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP) claimed responsibility for an attack at a train station in China’s western city of Urumqi in late April that killed one and injured 79 people, the SITE Monitoring service said.

China had said the attack in its restive Xinjiang region, home to the Muslim Uighur ethnic group, was carried out by two religious extremists who were also killed in the blast.

Xinjiang, resource-rich and strategically located on the borders of central Asia, has been beset by violence for years, and a recent series of attacks, some of which Beijing has called terrorism, have unnerved the country.

SITE, which tracks Islamist militant statements, said TIP had released a 10-minute video in the Uighur language showing the construction of a briefcase bomb it said was used in the station attack.

“A fighter is shown placing the explosive material and shrapnel of bolts inside a box, then inserting the detonation device in a briefcase with the explosive, and leaving the trigger exposed in an outside pocket,” SITE said of the video.

It said the video had been produced by the TIP’s Islam Awazi Media Centre and posted on its website on May 11.—Reuters

Published in Dawn, May 15th, 2014