Suspicious lone in blast near U.S. embassy in Beijing caught

By Lee Young Lee and Tom Daly

BEIJING (Reuters) – A bomb exploded outside the US embbady in Beijing on Thursday, wounding the lone badailant, the embbady said in a statement, the police described the weapon as "a firework device."

The explosion happened on the street outside the southeast corner of the embbady compound. Beijing police said the suspect, a 26-year-old man from China's Inner Mongolia region, which they identified only by the surname Jiang,

Police did not provide a motive but said in a statement via their official account on the Chinese social networking service Weibo that the suspect had a history of mental illness and was hospitalized for treatment. The suspect was hearing voices, the statement said.

China and the United States have been involved in a trade dispute initiated by Washington, with the two sides imposing tariffs on $ 34 billion worth of each other's goods. US President Donald Trump has allegedly threatened to punish tariffs on all Chinese imports.

Chinese and foreign media criticism of the United States of America

Witnesses told Reuters that they heard an explosion about the embbady and felt tremors.

"I'd just arrived and start to hear a loud explosion about 100 meters away , "a 19-year-old high school student who gave his name to Li told reporters."

Li said the blast is just as soon as possible. 19659003] A SUV font appeared to have been damaged, with its back windshield missing, and was removed by police before being removed, a Reuters witness said.

The embbady resumed normal operations at about 1.45 pm, it said. [19659003] Cr owds were 1965 1965 1965 1965 1965 1965 1965 1965 [[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[196519651965196519651965196519651965196519651965196519651965196519651965196519651965196519651965[[[[[[[

to where people line up outside the compound for visa appointments.

Li Shaohui, a 58-year-old sanitation worker, said he felt the ground shake and that some people screamed.

"I thought it was a big car crash, "Li told Reuters, adding that the smoke had cleared."

There was no damage to US embbady property, the embbady said. Staff members at the Indian and South Korean embbadies said they were unaware of any unusual incident and were working as normal.

The state-run Global Times reported separately, citing witnesses, that police took away a woman who sprayed herself with gasoline in A suspected self-immolation attempt outside the embbady at around 11

A witness who did not want to be identified Reuters that he saw a middle-aged woman with two buckets of gasoline. On the back of the Chinese characters for "sue them"

Beijing police and the US embbady did not immediately reply to a request for comment on the woman.

Security in the Chinese capital is tight and protests are often quickly disbanded. Violence crime rates are low in China,

(Reporting by Lee Young Lee, Tom Daly, Pei Li, Lusha Zhang, Cadell Cate, Josephine Mason, Dominique Patton, Michael Martina, Chen Yawen, Thomas Suen, Judy Hua and Fang Cheng, Writing by Tony Munroe and Editing by Nick Macfie and Hugh Lawson)