They were among a group of more than 20 Uyghurs surrounded and fired upon by police in a lightning raid last week in the Yilkiqi township in Kargilik (in Chinese, Yecheng) county in Kashgar prefecture, the sources said.
"We conducted an anti-terror operation on August 20th, successfully and completely destroying the terrorists," Yilkiqi township police chief Batur Osman told RFA's Uyghur Service.
Reports from eyewitnesses say that 26 men were surrounded as shot at as they prayed in the desert. Their bodes were later dumped in a mass grave by a bulldozer.
As protests by ethnic minorities in the region intensify, the Chinese government has increased it's negative coverage of the plight of the oft persecuted Uyghurs. Since siding with Assad in Syria's civil war, Beijing has painting the extremist Muslims in Xinjiang as terrorists, trained by the Syrian rebel forces, hellbent on bringing down the government.
Similar accusation of terrorism with brought against five men, with two of them receiving the death penalty for their involvement in rioting in the region in April this year. State run media was quick to rush out editorials supporting the sentencing, with purported expert of terrorism Lei Wei telling The Global Times
"Upholding laws during our fight against terrorism helps people at home and abroad get a clearer understanding about terrorist threats in Xinjiang,"
The ethnic Uyghurs say that the massive influx of Han Chinese to the region has deprived them of job opportunities and that they suffer from religious oppression. Escalating levels of violence, including stabbings and riots by knife wielding mobs have plagued the region this year, with the Chinese doing little in the way of addressing the issues raised by the Muslim minority.
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