*Source: DTN News / Int'l Media
(NSI News Source Info) BEIJING, China - July 19, 2009: After weeks of clashes in China's violence-stricken northwestern region of Xinjiang, Chinese police forces admit to killing 12 rioters in the western city of Urumqi. 
Police search drivers and their vehicles leaving the Uighur district in Urumqi on July 17, 2009 in northwest China's Xinjiang province. Security forces armed with semi-automatic weapons and batons were deployed in China's restive Urumqi city as worshippers descended on mosques for the main Muslim day of prayer.
Xinjiang governor Nur Bekri said on Sunday that police had exercised "the greatest restraint" as they sought to disperse protestors in the capital Urumqi. According to Bekri, security forces shot the "mobsters" after first firing several warning shots.
The official, however, stopped short of saying which ethnic group the "mobsters" belonged to. The Chinese governor said three of those killed died on the spot and nine others died after treatment failed.
Another Chinese official surnamed Wu from the Xinjiang regional government information office confirmed the report on Sunday but could not confirm whether those killed by the police were Uighurs or Han Chinese.
"Many police officers were injured and one was killed," Bekri added. Authorities charge Rebiya Kadeer, a prominent exiled Uighur activist, with fomenting the unrest. Kadeer, a US resident, has denied the charge.
A Uighur man walks past a squad of armed Chinese security personnel on patrol in the Uighur district of Urumqi on July 17, 2009 in northwest China's Xinjiang province. Security forces armed with semi-automatic weapons and batons were deployed in China's restive Urumqi city as worshippers descended on mosques for the main Muslim day of prayer.
The Uighurs were once the majority in Xinjiang but now make up only about half of the region's 20 million people due to Han migration.
The eight million Uighurs in Xinjiang accuse the Chinese government of discrimination and repression. The government, however, denies the charges.
The protests, which saw 197 people killed and more than 1,700 others injured, were sparked over the last month deaths of Uighur factory workers during a brawl in southern China.
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