Police in China’s troubled north-west region of Xinjiang have broken up 23 terror or extremist groups and detained more than 200 suspected militants in the last month, state media has reported.

The news came as authorities said a year-long anti-terrorism crackdown would require “unconventional measures” and the region’s party chief, Zhang Chunxian, announced a “people’s war” against terrorism, following one of the most deadly attacks in years.

Forty-three people were killed and more than 90 injured in Xinjiang’s capital, Urumqi, last Thursday when attackers in two off-road vehicles drove through a street market throwing explosives. Officials say four of the assailants died at the scene while the fifth was captured later that night.

… “There is greater discontent now and recognition that the Uighur character of the region is being irretrievably lost,” Ahmed Hashim, a terrorism expert at Singapore’s Nanyang Technical University, told Associated Press.