Local authorities in western China say they have shot two ethnic Uyghurs suspected of participating in an attack in the city of Kashi (also known as Kashgar) in the west of the Xinjiang region.
The statement said the two were "executed on the spot by police who were in the process of capturing them."
Chinese authorities accused Muslim "religious extremists" who advocated "jihad" and were led by people "trained in overseas terrorist camps" of orchestrating the violence that left at least 18 people dead and scores injured.
The state-run Xinhua news agency, citing a statement from the Kashi government, said on August 2 that an initial police investigation found that the leaders of the group behind the violence had learned about explosives and firearms in Pakistan at a camp of the separatist "East Turkestan Islamic Movement."
Ethnic tensions have been high in Xinjiang, the traditional home of the Muslim Uyghurs, for years due the influx of Han Chinese moving there to work in the expanding oil industry.
Nearly 200 people were reported killed in clashes there in 2009 in fighting in Urumqi between Muslim Uyghurs and Han Chinese.
compiled from agency reports