On 28 October 2013, a car ran over pedestrians and crashed in
Tiananmen Square
Tiananmen Square or Tian'anmen Square (; 天安门广场; Pinyin: ''Tiān'ānmén Guǎngchǎng''; Wade–Giles: ''Tʻien1-an1-mên2 Kuang3-chʻang3'') is a city square in the city center of Beijing, China, named after the eponymous Tiananmen (" ...
,
Beijing
}
Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...
,
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
, in a terrorist
suicide attack
A suicide attack is any violent Strike (attack), attack, usually entailing the attacker detonating an explosive, where the attacker has suicide, accepted their own death as a direct result of the attacking method used. Suicide attacks have oc ...
.
Five people died in the incident; three inside the vehicle and two others nearby.
Police identified the driver as Usmen Hasan and the two passengers as his wife, Gulkiz Gini, and his mother, Kuwanhan Reyim.
[ An additional 38 people were injured.][
Chinese police described it as a "major incident"][ and as the first ]terrorist attack
Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...
in Beijing's recent history.
The East Turkestan Islamic Movement
The Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP) or the Turkistan Islamic Movement (TIM), formerly known as the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) and other names, is a Uyghur Islamic extremist organization founded in Western China. Its stated goals a ...
, or Turkistan Islamic Party, claimed responsibility and warned of future attacks.[Islamist group claims responsibility for attack on China's Tiananmen Square.]
/ref>
Incident
A 4x4 vehicle crashed into a crowd and burst into flames near the portrait of Mao Zedong at Tiananmen Square
Tiananmen Square or Tian'anmen Square (; 天安门广场; Pinyin: ''Tiān'ānmén Guǎngchǎng''; Wade–Giles: ''Tʻien1-an1-mên2 Kuang3-chʻang3'') is a city square in the city center of Beijing, China, named after the eponymous Tiananmen (" ...
.[ All three people inside the car were killed, as well as two tourists in the square – one Filipino woman and a male Chinese citizen from the ]Guangdong province
Guangdong (, ), alternatively romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The capital of the province is Guangzhou. With a population of 126.01 million (as of 2020) ...
.[ Thirty-eight people were injured.][ Witnesses at the scene said that the car involved in the incident was honking its horn at pedestrians.
]
Investigation
Chinese police later issued a notice to Beijing hotels seeking information about two people from China's Xinjiang
Xinjiang, SASM/GNC: ''Xinjang''; zh, c=, p=Xīnjiāng; formerly romanized as Sinkiang (, ), officially the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China (PRC), located in the northwest ...
Uyghur Autonomous Region.[ The notice described a vehicle and four Xinjiang number plates.][ They also instructed hotels to be aware of "suspicious" guests.]Uyghurs
The Uyghurs; ; ; ; zh, s=, t=, p=Wéiwú'ěr, IPA: ( ), alternatively spelled Uighurs, Uygurs or Uigurs, are a Turkic ethnic group originating from and culturally affiliated with the general region of Central and East Asia. The Uyghur ...
, a Turkic Muslim minority group, who hailed from their native Xinjiang, a region in which there is ongoing conflict.[ One suspect was from the town of Lukun in Shanshan County, the location of an attack in June 2013 in which 30 people were killed. The five suspects were taken into police custody, and said they knew Hasan.][ Three of the suspects, identified as Huseyin Guxur, Yusup Wherniyas and Yusup Ehmet, were convicted of masterminding the attack, and executed in August 2014.
Top Chinese security official Meng Jianzhu said that the ]East Turkestan Islamic Movement
The Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP) or the Turkistan Islamic Movement (TIM), formerly known as the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) and other names, is a Uyghur Islamic extremist organization founded in Western China. Its stated goals a ...
(ETIM) was behind the attacks,Turkistan Islamic Party
The Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP) or the Turkistan Islamic Movement (TIM), formerly known as the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) and other names, is a Uyghur Islamic extremist organization founded in Western China. Its stated goals ar ...
, which has since been absorbed by the ETIM, declared it was responsible for the attack.[
]
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camera crew was briefly detained by police after taking footage of the attack. Coverage in the
largely downplayed the incident, with only brief reports.
Although such associations were made in English-language media, Chinese-language publications did not link the incident to Xinjiang.