Uyghur attire. Authorities became concerned with the fashion trend after a spate of murders and robberies outside Hotan where the perpetrators wore face-concealing veils, so they ineffectively campaigned to discourage women from wearing the veils, using slogans such as "show off your pretty looks and let your beautiful long hair fly". Uyghur terrorist attacks usually take the form of IEDs and vehicle-borne bombs in heavily policed areas. Compared to the 1990s, such bombings from 2000 onward have tended to claim civilian as well as traditional police and bureaucratic targets. Attack According to a subsequent investigation, a group of 18 anti-government religious extremists arrived in Hotan from Kashgar on July 16, 2 days before the attack; they brought "several dozen different knives including cleavers, axes and switchblades" with them. The men, Uyghurs between the age of 20 and 35, prepared for the attack at the local bazaar, buying materials to create explosives. The attack was executed on July 18, around the Iktar Grand Bazaar in the center of Hotan, when the group entered a government building and took several hostages. According to witnesses, the men approached the gates of the Nuerbage (Naarburg) Street police station around noon with weapons concealed in cardboard boxes, stabbing a Uyghur security guard to death when they got close enough. The guard, Memet Eli, was 25 years old and engaged to be married in September. After killing Eli, the men shouted slogans in Uyghur denouncing the government's campaign against the Islamic veil, in what onlookers described as Kashgar and Aksu accents. Variously described as "terrorists", "rioters", or "thugs" in accounts, the men proceeded to storm the police building wielding molotov cocktails, knives, and grenades. Shouting jihadist slogans such as "Allah is the only god!" and "Holy war!" they broke into the police station, wherein they took police hostages, smashed computer hardware and furniture, and set fires. Two Uyghur women submitting forms inside the police office were trapped inside a smoky room before being rescued through the windows by street vendors. The men proceeded to take down the Chinese flag atop the police station to put up another flag, with conflicting reports about the new flag's design. The government says the flag was black with white Arabic lettering: the Black Standard commonly known as the "black flag of jihad". Residents interviewed by the Financial Times say it was the "blue half-moon flag" used by Xinjiang independence advocates,