140 slain as Muslims riot in China

Reporting from Beijing -- China's worst ethnic violence in years broke out Sunday in the northwestern city of Urumqi, leaving 140 people dead and more than 800 injured, the state news agency Xinhua reported.

The unrest pitted Uighurs, a long-aggrieved Muslim minority, against the Han Chinese, who increasingly dominate the far-flung Xinjiang region. With the death toll climbing over the course of the day, the violence appeared to be far deadlier than that last year in the Tibetan region.

Images from the city of 2 million showed flames raging from overturned cars and black smoke billowing over downtown.

Urumqi was virtually closed down today, with vehicles barred in much of the city, telephone lines and the Internet down.

Chinese bloggers wrote that at least one bomb exploded during the incident and that about 100 public buses were destroyed.

The Chinese government accused Uighur exiles in the U.S. of masterminding what was described by state television as a rampage of "beating, smashing, robbing and burning."

But representatives of the Uighurs, a Muslim minority, countered that they were holding a peaceful demonstration that turned ugly because of government brutality....

Right. You know that any violence between Muslims and non-Muslims is never the fault of the Muslims.