Man detonates homemade bomb in Beijing airport

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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...567203222.html

Quote:
Man Detonates Bomb in Beijing Airport Terminal
Only the Bomber Is Injured in Incident in Terminal, Chinese Media and Witnesses Say

BEIJING—A Chinese man in a wheelchair detonated an improvised explosive device in Beijing's international airport on Saturday, injuring himself and filling part of the building with smoke and dust, but without causing other casualties, according to state media and witnesses.

The state-run Xinhua news agency reported on its website that the man detonated the device at 6:24 pm local time in Terminal 3 of Beijing International Airport. Xinhua published a photograph of medical staff treating the injured man at the airport. It said nobody else was injured.

A posting on the official Weibo account of state-run China Central Television identified the man as Ji Zhongxing, saying he was born in 1979 and was from China's eastern province of Shandong.

Several witnesses posted photographs on China's popular Twitter-like Sina Weibo microblogging platform that appeared to show the man seated in a wheelchair, shouting and holding a white object over his head shortly before the blast.

Other witnesses' pictures on Weibo showed the empty wheelchair lying on its side after the blast as a cloud of white dust and smoke spread through the terminal building and police and bystanders ran in different directions.

Stephanie Kleine-Ahlbrandt, northeast Asia director for the International Crisis Group, said she heard but didn't see the blast as she passed through the terminal and then saw the cloud of dust and smoke filling the area.

"It was a huge boom. The explosion itself was deafening," she said. "Then there was immediately a lot of dust and smoke. The police were clearing everyone away. They were clearly very panicked."










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