The third attack on a railway station in just over two months raises new questions about the potential spread of Islamist militancy in China. The May 6 attack in Guangzhou, the capital of the southeastern province of Guangdong, was preceded by an April 30 attack in Urumqi, the capital of the western Uighur Xinjiang Autonomous Region, and a March 1 attack in Kunming, the capital of the southern Yunnan province. The Chinese government linked the first two attacks to alleged Uighur terrorists, but in Kunming and Guangzhou, there are signs that suggest radicalism may spread into the ethnically Han Muslim Hui population, marking a major change in China’s internal security dynamic.

Reports surrounding the May 6 attack remain fragmentary, but according to Chinese state and social media, between one and four assailants wearing white clothes and white hats and wielding “long knives” attacked people outside the train station at around 11:30 a.m., injuring at least six. Police shot one suspect, who is currently hospitalized. State media have yet to attribute the attack to a responsible party, but if the attackers dressed in white attire as reports claim, they may belong to the Hui minority. Members of this community commonly wear white headdresses; by contrast, Uighurs typically wear multi-colored, ornamented hats.

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