Weapons prepared beforehand, division of tasks clear

According to the security department, these misdoers were mostly from outside Urumqi, and several leaders among them wore similar clothes.

The weapons used during the riot were mostly stones, bricks, wood and iron clubs, as well as some knives and guns. Some businessmen in the city told reporters that knives became hot selling products two or three days before the unrest.

The department said that two tickets were found in a captured suspect. One was a used ticket from south Xinjiang to Urumqi on July 4, the other was a return ticket on July 6.

Information revealed by a principal from a company at the Tianchi Road showed that, at about 8:40 p.m., a woman in a black robe ran to a man with about 30 thugs following. The man gave her several clubs and she gave out the clubs to the followers.

The principal said the stones and bricks used by these people were not from the Tianchi Road as the bricks on the road were not damaged. "There were also some stones which looked like to be from some building sites. It was like they had prepared them beforehand."

According to witnesses, the misdoers' wood clubs were actually used to support the small trees along the Tianchi road. Each one of them was about 1.2 meters long, with a diameter of 5 to 10 cm.

Local residents told reporters that about 60 small trees were planted along the road just in June. They thought the thugs chose here because of the "ready-made" weapons. Also, the residents said there were many alleys and lanes along the road, making it hard to chase the thugs.

Witnesses from other places also claimed that the stones used during the riot were never seen in the city.

Businessmen from the area of the city's woman-children health care center told reporters that they saw people dropped stones from upstairs on passersby and cars along the road. "The stones must be carried upstairs beforehand... How come there were so many stones in the buildings?" One of them said.

Many witnesses' accounts coincide with the records of monitor cameras in which young women repeatedly appeared in black, white or brown robes and black hoods and young men in blue T-shirts.

Professional and cruel

In interviews, reporters found the main attacking method during the unrest was to hit people in the head with wood clubs and stones.

According to several local hospitals which received injured people during the riot, most of the patients had serious head injuries, and those who died were also due to head injuries.

Photos from the local police also showed that many victims were lying beside scattered stones and bricks -- some were as large as a watermelon.

Transportation facilities were also one of the main targets.

Sources with the Urumqi Bus Group told Xinhua that a total of 28 buses were burned and 266 got smashed. The damaged vehicles accounted for one tenth of the company's total.

A worker from a bus station which was attacked recalled that some misdoers had set up road-blocks in several main streets and they were "very good at driving" and familiar with the structure of vehicles.

Sources with the Urumqi Bus Group said at about 9:30 p.m., a group of thugs rushed into the company's yard and took out the electrical wires from the circuit board and started the vehicles. They drove the vehicles to crash the telegraph pole to which a monitor camera was attached.

Witnesses also said that many burned gas-fired vehicles were first ignited from the rear end of the buses where the gas tank was located.

Many company workers were shocked that the misdoers knew so much about their vehicles and said some of the knowledge could only be acquired through professional trainings.

They recalled that in the last two years, some young men were practicing to drive vehicles every night in the area around the bus station. Many workers on night shift heard the noises of engines and screeching sound.