TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Blast outside U.S. embassy in China injures suspect
Change Size
Journalists take photos of scattered glass and blood on the pavement outside the US embassy compound in Beijing on July 26, 2018 following a blast near the embassy premises. A 26-year-old Chinese man set off a small explosive device outside the US embassy in Beijing on July 26, injuring his hand in the blast before he was taken into custody, police said.
Greg BAKER / AFP (AFP/Greg Baker)
A
bomb exploded outside the U.S. embassy in Beijing on Thursday, wounding the lone assailant, the embassy said in a statement, but police described the weapon merely as a "firework device".
The explosion happened in a public space off the southeast corner of the embassy compound, the embassy said. Beijing police said the suspect, a 26-year-old man from China's Inner Mongolia region, had injured his hand.
Police did not provide a motive but China and the United States have been involved in an escalating trade dispute initiated by the Trump administration after the two sides imposed tariffs on $34 billion worth of each other's goods.
Witnesses told Reuters that they heard an explosion near the embassy and felt tremors.
A police SUV appeared to have been damaged, with its back windshield missing, and was cordoned off by police before being removed, a Reuters witness said.
Crowds were still queueing outside the embassy after the explosion and traffic was moving as normal in an area of northeastern Beijing that is home to numerous embassies including those of France, India and Israel.
Postings on social media showed pictures of smoke close to where people line up outside the compound for visa appointments. Some video clips and images were later removed.
Staff members at the Indian and South Korean embassies said they were unaware of any unusual incident and were working as normal.
An earlier report in the Global Times, a newspaper run by the ruling Communist Party's People's Daily, said that police had removed a woman who had sprayed herself with gasoline in a suspected self-immolation attempt.
