Eight "attackers" armed with knives and explosives were killed Monday during a "terrorist attack" on a police station in China's Xinjiang according to authorities, the latest deadly incident in the largely Muslim region.

One of the attackers was held in the clash in Shache county, said the official website of the government of Xinjiang, where mainly Muslim Uighurs are the largest ethnic group.

The website, which called it a "terrorist attack" said: "Police took decisive action, shooting eight people and arresting one." Officials were investigating, it added.

The area, around 200 kilometres (124 miles) south-east of Kashgar, is known as Yarkand in the Uighur language.

China's foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang called it a "violent terrorist attack".

"It testifies once again to the anti-society and anti-human nature of the three evil forces, and they have caused great damage to the state, the society and the people," he said at a regular briefing.

Beijing refers to what it calls ethnic separatism, religious extremism and terrorism as the "three evil forces".

Authorities have blamed "terrorists" for a series of similar attacks this year in Xinjiang, a sprawling and resource-rich region four times the size of Japan and rich in oil and natural gas.

Rights groups and outside scholars, however, say unrest is spawned by cultural oppression, intrusive security measures and a wave of immigration by China's Han majority.

"Directly shooting to death protesters accused of so-called terror is... the latest means to suppress Uighurs," said Dilxat Raxit, a spokesman for exile group the World Uyghur Congress (WUC).

"Uighurs are enduring Chinese discrimination and humiliation," he added in an email.

Government economic policies aimed at developing the region have raised Uighur living standards, though Han dominance of the economy has helped foster continued resentment.

Xinjiang has seen regular violent incidents this year, including one in the Turpan area that left 35 people dead in June.

The latest violence came after 16 people, including two police officers, were killed in a clash near the Silk Road city of Kashgar earlier this month, when authorities said that "thugs" armed with explosive devices and knives attacked police attempting to detain them.

The WUC described that incident as a "massacre" of a family preparing for a forthcoming wedding.

In late October, police said three Xinjiang Uighurs drove a vehicle into crowds of tourists opposite Beijing's Tiananmen Square -- the symbolic heart of the Chinese state -- killing two people and injuring 40, before crashing outside the Forbidden City and setting their vehicle ablaze.

All three attackers, described as a man, his wife and his mother, died.

Beijing described the assault, the first blamed on Uighurs outside Xinjiang, as "terrorism" and said separatists backed by the militant East Turkestan Islamic Movement were responsible.

In the worst outbreak of sectarian violence in recent years in China, around 200 people died and more than 1,600 were injured while hundreds were arrested in riots in the Xinjiang regional capital Urumqi in July 2009.

Nicholas Dynon, who researches Chinese media and propaganda at Macquarie University in Sydney, stressed that analysing the causes and effects of violence in Xinjiang was never easy given the difficulty of obtaining independent and unbiased information from the region.

But coverage in state-run media had increased, he said, amid a broader crackdown by new President Xi Jinping on a range of issues in China, although Xinjiang itself had seen far more violent periods in the past.

"I don't think there is necessarily a causal relationship between the recent crackdowns and higher rate of violent attacks in Xinjiang," he told AFP.

But he added: "I do believe there is a direct relationship between the crackdowns and higher rates of openness in reporting on events occurring in Xinjiang this year."

Timeline of unrest in China's Xinjiang region
Beijing (AFP) Dec 30, 2013 - Eight "attackers" have been shot dead during an assault on a police station in China's Xinjiang, according to authorities who have blamed "terrorists" for a string of incidents in the largely Muslim region.

Here is a chronology of key events related to the restive region since 2009:

2009

June 25 -- A huge brawl erupts in the city of Shaoguan in southern China's Guangdong province between ethnic minority Uighur and Han Chinese factory workers. Two Uighurs are reported killed and dozens injured.

July 5 -- Uighurs gather in Urumqi to protest over the Shaoguan incident but violence erupts after security forces move in. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Uighurs riot.

July 6 -- Chinese security forces begin to pour into Urumqi and fan out across Xinjiang. The Xinjiang government blames exiled Uighur dissident Rebiya Kadeer for orchestrating the unrest. Kadeer, other Uighur exiles and Uighurs in Urumqi blame Chinese authorities for provoking violence.

July 7 -- The government says nearly 200 people died in the unrest, with more than 1,600 injured and hundreds arrested.

September 2 -- Han residents take to Urumqi's streets for several days of protests calling for a crackdown over a wave of syringe stabbings. The government eventually says nearly 500 were stabbed. Beijing blames "ethnic separatist forces". At least 75 are later reported arrested for the attacks.

November 9 -- China says it has put to death the first nine people over the July unrest. Eventually at least 26 are reportedly sentenced to death.

2010

June 24 -- Police say they broke a Xinjiang "terrorist" ring behind a string of deadly attacks in the region, arresting at least 10 people.

2011

July 18 -- Police kill 20 protesters in clashes in Hotan in southern Xinjiang, exiled Uighur groups say. State press say police fired on demonstrators after they attacked a police station, killing one officer.

July 31-August 1 -- Two attacks by alleged terrorists leave 13 people dead in a Han Chinese section of Kashgar, while police kill eight suspected Uighur separatists. State press reports the suspects were trained in terrorist cells in neighbouring Pakistan.

September 15 -- Courts in Xinjiang sentence to death four Uighurs convicted of involvement in the July incidents.

December 28 -- Police kill seven "terrorists" in a hostage standoff that left one officer dead in Pishan county. State media calls them terrorists engaged in a "holy war."

2012

February 28 -- Rioters armed with knives kill at least 10 people in Yecheng, while police shoot two of the attackers dead, state press say. One man is later sentenced to death.

May 20 -- Police detain a 12-year-old boy in Korla city after a raid on an illegal Islamic school. Overseas activists later accuse police of beating the boy to death. Police say the death was related to a beating received at the school.

June 29 -- Six Uighur men try to hijack a plane that had taken off from Hotan and are thwarted by passengers and crew. Two of the men die in the struggle, and 24 crew members and passengers are injured. In December, a court sentences three of the remaining men to death, and a fourth is given a life prison term.

2013

April 23 -- Gunfights break out in Bachu county, leaving 15 police and community workers and six "terrorists" dead. Two men are later sentenced to death over the unrest.

June 26 -- At least 35 people are killed when, according to Xinhua news agency, "knife-wielding mobs" attack police stations and other sites in Turpan city's Lukqun township before security personnel arrive and open fire. Three people are later sentenced to death.

August 20 -- A Chinese policeman is killed in an incident in Yilkiqi described by state media as an "anti-terrorism" operation. Overseas media report, however, that 22 Uighurs were shot dead in the confrontation, which they label a raid.

October 28 -- A sport utility vehicle ploughs into pedestrians and bursts into flame near Beijing's Tiananmen Square, killing two tourists and injuring another 40 people in what officials call a terrorist attack. All three people inside the vehicle, identified by authorities as a man, his wife and his mother, all from Xinjiang, die.

November 17 -- Two police officers and nine attackers are killed in an attack on a police station in Serikbuya, near Kashgar, state media say. Rights groups say the clash erupted after a Uighur youth was shot dead during a protest.

December 16 -- Sixteen people -- 14 Uighurs and two police officers -- are killed in a clash in Shufu county. Authorities describe the slain Uighurs as members of an extremist group, but campaigners say police raided a house where a family was preparing for a wedding and that six women were among those killed.

December 30 -- An assault on a police station in Yarkand leaves eight attackers dead, according to the Xinjiang government's official website.