The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, Kashgar

Chinese authorities moved Tuesday to keep a lid on further information about a bloody assault on police in Kashgar with a truck, explosives and machetes.

At the hotel directly across from the site of Monday's raid, which killed 16 policemen, guests were told in the morning that the Internet had been shut off across the city, on police orders. Police entered an AFP photographer's hotel room and forced him to delete photos he had taken of the scene. Plainclothes police followed journalists as they moved around the city. "We can't talk about that. You must understand if we talk about it, the police will come and arrest us," said a shopkeeper in Kashgar, a remote city in northwest China's Xinjiang region, who declined to be named.

Nevertheless some independent information emerged outside of the uniform coverage in China's state-run press, which was all based on reports from the official Xinhua news agency. Foreign witnesses described a "sickening" scene that unfolded as two assailants drove a truck at a group of policemen who were out jogging, then attacked the officers with small explosives and machetes.