With 39 deaths and 94 injuries, the May 22 bomb attack in Urumqi has not only claimed the highest number of lives in a single attack in China, but also proven that terrorists are changing their modus operandi. From the car crash on Beijing’s Tian’anmen Square in October 2013 to the violent attack at Kunming railway station in Yunnan province this March to the explosion at Urumqi railway station in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region last month, the recent terrorist attacks prove that terrorists are using deadlier techniques in order to cause the maximum damage to the people and the State.

Until a year ago, terrorists mostly targeted rural areas of Xinjiang as the violent attack in Shanshan county last June and the attacks in Bacu county in April and November last year show. But since June 2013, terrorist groups have been targeting heavily crowded areas in cities, like railway stations, markets and public squares, not only to cause heavy casualties, but also to inflict deeper psychological wound on people.

Of course, terrorists also have political motives in selecting their targets. Terrorists carried out the attack on Tian’anmen Square to challenge the country’s governance and spread terror among the people — which is exactly what terrorists have been doing across the world. Terrorist groups started targeting ordinary people after the Chinese leadership strengthened security measures in and around key buildings and public facilities. In the latest attack in Urumqi, they targeted a market because security was tight in and around public facilities.

Unlike the attacks in Shanshan, Bacu and Shche in Xinjiang, where the terrorists targeted local police and officials, most of the recent attacks have targeted ordinary, unguarded people, because terrorists know it is an “easier” way to cause mass casualties. But by doing so, the terrorists have lost the sympathy of the few people who once saw the attacks as acts of desperation by misguided people. The mayhem and indiscriminate killing of people have also made separatists lose whatever little international support they had.

Even the United States, which used to avoid using the word “terrorism” to describe attacks in Xinjiang, condemned the latest attack soon after it was reported. Moreover, terrorists are relying more on religious extremists whose only mantra is hatred and violence, which is something Uygur and other residents of Xinjiang are fed up of.

Although lone wolf attacks have been reported from some cities abroad — for example, in Boston in April last year — repeated attacks in densely populated cities in a country like China involve a lot of preparations and technical support. Police in Urumqi have already found that a gang of five meticulously planned the attack on the market, including making explosives and selecting the target.