Chinese forces used a flamethrower to force more than 10 'terrorists' from a cave in the western Xinjiang region in the hunt for what Beijing has called foreign-led extremists.

China said security forces had recently killed 28 members of a group that carried out a deadly attack at a coal mine in Aksu in September.

In its account, which could not be independently verified, the official People's Liberation Army Daily said armed police had tracked the attackers into the mountains 'like eagles discovering their prey'.

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On the hunt: Armed officers spent 56 days hunting a group Beijing says were 'Muslim terrorists'. This image is from September as they hone in on their targets

Burning: A flamethrower like one of these was reportedly used by People's Liberation Army soldiers to flush out suspected terrorists in Xinjiang. Here they are being used on China's border with Vietnam in early November

Trek: Before they got to their targets, forces trekked for over a month at an elevation of over 2,600 metres above sea level to track down those they say were terrorists

Armed operation: The special task force hunting the group just as they are about to storm the cave

The PLA Daily said the special forces used flash grenades and tear gas to force the attackers out of hiding, but when those methods failed, a senior officer said: 'Use the flamethrower'.

After that, the newspaper said the attackers came out at the troops wielding knives and that they were then 'completely annihilated'.

China's government says it faces a serious threat from Islamist militants and separatists in energy-rich Xinjiang, on the border of central Asia, where hundreds have died in violence in recent years.

WHO ARE THE UIGHURS IN CHINA AND WHAT ARE THEIR ASPIRATIONS? The Uighurs are Muslims who see themselves as more culturally and ethnically tied to Central Asian nations than to China They are an indigenous group who speak a Turkic language They live in the Xinjiang region in western China and have had a long history of clashing with China’s central authorities. The Uighurs’ case for greater autonomy strengthened after the collapse of the USSR and they saw the establishment of independent Muslim states in Central Asia Beijing is accused by some rights groups of suppressing demonstrations by the Uighurs Advertisement

Rights groups say China has never presented convincing evidence of the existence of a cohesive militant group fighting the government.

Much of the unrest, they argue, is due to frustration at controls on the culture and religion of the Muslim Uighur people who live in Xinjiang.

Beijing vehemently denies accusations of rights abuses, though independent verification of the situation in Xinjiang is hard because of tight government controls on visits by foreign reporters.

In a statement, spokesman for exile group the World Uighur Congress Dilxat Raxit said: 'The Paris attacks gave China a political excuse to brazenly use flamethrowers to clamp down on unarmed Uighurs who have no just legal protection and who seek to avoid arrest.'

Senior Chinese officials have increasingly described the security challenges in Xinjiang as an important front in the global fight against terrorism.

Western nations, however, have been reluctant to cooperate in China's anti-terrorism campaign there, nervous about being implicated in possible rights abuses.