Beijing adds armed police patrols after attacks

. Heavily armed Chinese paramilitary police men march past the site of the Wednesday explosion outside the Urumqi South Railway Station in Urumqi in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region on Thursday, May 1, 2014. Recent deadly attacks in China blamed on Islamic extremists are getting bolder and bloodier, targeting civilians rather than the authorities and further challenging Beijing’s ability to stop them. AP

. Heavily armed Chinese paramilitary police men march past the site of the Wednesday explosion outside the Urumqi South Railway Station in Urumqi in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region on Thursday, May 1, 2014. Recent deadly attacks in China blamed on Islamic extremists are getting bolder and bloodier, targeting civilians rather than the authorities and further challenging Beijing’s ability to stop them. AP

BEIJING— China’s capital boosted armed police patrols Monday following a spate of attacks the government blames on terrorists seeking independence for the northwestern region of Xinjiang.

Beijing’s police force said on its microblog that 150 additional vehicles and nearly 2,000 police and auxiliaries were being assigned to guard key intersections around the city of more than 20 million people.

The measure was taken to increase the public’s sense of security, intimidate would-be assailants, and shorten response times to violent incidents, the police statement said.

“This armed patrol brigade will speedily and effectively take down all forms of terrorist activity,” it said.

China has increased security countrywide in the wake of two recent attacks at train stations that killed 30 people and at least two attackers. The assaults were blamed on extremists from among Xinjiang’s native Turkic Muslim Uighur ethnic group.

The violence has also included an unprecedented attack last year on Tiananmen Gate in the heart of Beijing that killed three Uighur assailants and two tourists.

Although Uighur (pronounced WEE’-gur) separatists have been waging a low-level insurgency for decades, recent attacks have been bolder and bloodier, targeting civilians and underscoring shortfalls in Beijing’s ability to respond.

Uighur activists say the violence is being fueled by restrictive and discriminatory policies imposed by China’s majority Han ethnic group.

China has blamed several incidents on overseas-based separatist radicals in the East Turkistan Islamic Organization, although it has presented little evidence.

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