SHANGHAI, China — Police shot and killed a man armed with explosives who took 10 Australians hostage on a tourist bus Wednesday in northern China, a state news agency reported.
Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said Thursday that the hijacker’s motives were not known. “There is no indication this was particularly aimed at Australia or Australians,” he told reporters.
The official Xinhua News Agency, citing local police, said a man identified as Xia Tao hijacked the bus in the popular tourist city of Xi’an. The agency said he was armed with explosives and was fatally shot by police after a standoff lasting almost three hours.
Janaline Oh, a spokeswoman at the Australian embassy, said nine hostages had been released early in the incident. She said that the 10th hostage, a 48-year-old woman from New South Wales, was not immediately released and that Chinese police had to intervene to rescue her.
