Story highlights

A suspect is captured, state-run media say

"Terrorists" drive motorcycles and cars and attack police on patrol

Police kill eight "terrorists," and three more are killed by their own suicide bomb

CNN  — 

Eleven “terrorists” were killed – eight by police, and three by their own suicide bomb – in a terrorist attack Friday in northwest China’s restive Xinjiang region, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

Police captured a suspect in the attack, Xinhua reported, citing police.

Armed with explosives and knives, the assailants were riding motorbikes and driving cars and attacked a team of police on patrol about 4 p.m. local time, state media said, quoting police.

Frequent outbreaks of violence have beset Xinjiang, a resource-rich region where the arrival of waves of Han Chinese people over the decades has fueled tensions with the Uyghurs, a Turkic-speaking, predominantly Muslim ethnic group.

About 190 terrorist attacks were recorded in Xinjiang in 2012, the regional public security department told Xinhua.