Close to a hundred people were killed last week as local authorities and terrorists engaged in a deadly clash in China's Xinjiang region, the deadliest incident yet since the Urumqi riots five years ago.

According to a statement issued by the Chinese government, 59 suspected terrorists and 37 civilians were killed while 215 were arrested during the violent uprising in Shache County on July 28.

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The attack - believed to have been carried out with foreign support - was planned by the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, a group that aims for Xinjiang's independence, the statement added.

Police reports said the assailants, armed with axes and knives, went on a rampage as they attacked innocent civilians, breached state-run establishments and destroyed vehicles. Some of the attackers also carried banners that declared holy war, Xinhua News reported.

The assailants reportedly waylaid civilians at roadblocks, forced them to join the rally and slashed them with knives if they refused to do so.

The government claims the attack was instigated by Nuramat Sawut, a local leader of the separatist movement. He has been linked to a number of extremist propaganda movements in the past year.

In light of the recent attack, Xinjiang's Party Secretary Zhang Chunxian vowed to mete out a harsher crackdown on the terrorists.

"To fight such evils, we must aim at extermination. To cut weeds, we must dig out the roots," he added.

Meanwhile, overseas Uighur support groups maintain that the riots were brought about by an anti-terrorism campaign, adding that they were merely protests against Xinjiang's "heavy-handed Ramadan crackdown."

Many Uighurs were against the region's restrictions such as the prohibition of fasting during Ramadan and the measures taken by the government to prevent Uighur women from wearing their head scarves in public.

Some also said that anger within the community may have been fueled by last month's incident when an Uighur family was killed by Chinese police forces in a dispute over a head scarf inspection that ended in gunfire.

Among the dead were a 72-year-old man and his 7-year-old grandson, Radio Free Asia reported.

TagsXinjiang crisis, Xinjiang crackdown, Xinjiang violence, Uighur Muslim, Uighur crackdown, Zhang Chunxian, Shache County, East Turkestan Islamic Movement, Xinjiang Ramadan, Muslims in China, Independent Xinjiang, burka