Another school attack

 BEIJING (AP):

A man wielding a knife killed three children and a teacher in a kindergarten in eastern China, residents reported yesterday, as the government muted information in a bid to allay public fears and forestall more school attacks.

The delay in releasing information by officials and state media is part of a government attempt to discourage copycat killers and assuage fears over a series of school attacks this year that have caused dozens of deaths and wounded scores.

Online postings about the attack were deleted by midafternoon yesterday by government censors who police the Internet for material considered politically sensitive.

Reports are that the assailant entered the Boshan District Experimental Kindergarten's Jinfengyuan branch in a suburb of Zibo in Shandong province at about 4 p.m. on Tuesday, while parents were picking up their children. This is according to people living nearby and were contacted by telephone.

About 20 children and staff members were wounded, two of the children seriously, they said.

In state media's only mention of the attack, Xinhua News Agency issued a short report yesterday, citing a city government statement that said police had detained a 26-year-old man on suspicion of killing at least three children.

Confession

Self-employed Fang Jiantang admitted committing the attack with a 24-inch (60-centimetre) knife, but his motive was unknown, Xinhua said.

Assailants in previous attacks often had mental illness, grudges against their victims or anger over personal failures.

In Tuesday's attack, Xinhua reported three children died at the scene, and three others and four teachers were taken to hospital. Two teachers were in serious condition, it said.

Earlier, the head of the Zibo government propaganda department's news office, who gave just his surname, Bi, would say only that there had been "very few deaths and injuries".

"The country has a regulation about reporting on these sorts of reports. There's a worry that they might inspire copycat crimes, creating a negative impact, so, therefore, we are not issuing a report," Bi told The Associated Press by phone.

A woman who works in a restaurant opposite the kindergarten said the attacker was a man aged 27 or 28 who posed as a parent to enter the school.

Police rushed to the kindergarten soon after the attack and officers transported some wounded children to a hospital before ambulances had time to arrive, said the woman, who would give only her surname, Zhang.

"The kindergarten has been sealed off," Zhang said. "There are still police officers there."

Zhang and other area residents said the teacher died of her injuries yesterday morning.