Chinese police have shot dead two men suspected of mounting a fatal attack in Xinjiang region on Sunday, the state-run Xinhua news agency reports.

It said the two, Memtieli Tiliwaldi and Turson Hasan, were found hiding in a corn field on the outskirts of the city of Kashgar.

Six people were killed in an attack on a restaurant there. Police shot dead five suspects at the scene.

A weekend of violence left up to 18 people dead in the restive region.

The latest two killings add to that toll.

"We will harshly attack any atrocities that threaten people's lives, defile the dignity of the law, and threaten supreme national interests," said the governor of Xinjiang, Nur Bekri.

In 2009, riots erupted in Xinjiang in which nearly 200 people died after tensions flared between the Muslim Uighurs who are a majority in the region - and the Han Chinese.

The government had blamed the latest attack on "terrorists" trained in Pakistan.

Pakistan, a close ally of China, expressed its confidence that Beijing would succeed in frustrating the "evil designs of... extremists and separatists".