Two dead in China 'terror' raid

China says it has destroyed a "terrorist gang" in a raid in the north-western province of Xinjiang.

State media reported that two people were killed and 15 arrested in the raid on an apartment in the provincial capital Urumqi last month.

China has been struggling for years to contain separatist sentiment among the Uighur minority in Xinjiang.

Many Uigurs have campaigned for the mainly Muslim province to become an independent republic.

The Global Times, a newspaper published by the Communist Party mouthpiece China Daily, said the raid on 27 January was the largest of its kind in over a year.

The newspaper reported that guns, home-made bombs and extremist literature were found in the apartment.

CHINA'S UIGHURS Ethnically Turkic Muslims, mainly living in Xinjiang Made bid for independent state in 1940s Sporadic violence in Xinjiang since 1991

Five policemen were injured by home-made grenades during the raid, it said.

China claims that the group had collaborated with the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), which the UN considers a terrorist organisation.

China has always insisted that ETIM has links to al-Qaeda but critics say Beijing uses the US-led War on Terror as a front for suppressing ethnic discontent.

In the 1990s, groups opposed to Chinese rule in Xinjiang staged a string of bomb attacks on Chinese citizens, and in January 2007, 18 people died in a Chinese attack on an alleged militant training camp.