Terrorists deserve no leniency and the crackdown that has been launched to hunt them down is the right way to protect innocent residents from becoming victims of their violence.

The execution of 13 terrorists on Monday in three cities in western China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region underlines this. Their execution was also a manifestation of this country's belief that terrorism is the enemy of all and should never be tolerated.

The fight against terrorism has yielded fruitful results in the autonomous region in recent days since local residents have been mobilized to contribute to the campaign by providing information about terrorist activities.

Within 20 days of the campaign's launch, up to June 12, the public security departments in the region received more than 300 clues about terrorist groups or their activities. Nine terrorist groups and one extreme religious group were uncovered according to tips from local residents, with more than 60 suspects detained.

In one such case, three terrorists broke into an entertainment venue in the city of Hotan on Sunday and wielded axes in their attempt to kill people there, but in little more than an hour, they were subdued and caught by the joint efforts of residents and police officers.

Cooperation from local residents is particularly important in the fight against terrorism, and it should not be difficult for ordinary residents to have the awareness that terrorist activities will not do them any good and will only destabilize the local situation, making it even harder for them to lead peaceful lives and make a living.

Besides efforts by both the local and central governments to improve the livelihoods of local residents by promoting the local economy, how local government leaders, those at the grassroots in particular, behave will make a great difference.

The central government and its local counterpart are doing what they can to raise the living standards of local residents, those in the impoverished south of the region in particular.

But both the central and local governments need to ensure that grassroots officials do a good job in exercising clean and efficient governance, so that local residents benefit from the efforts to boost the region's development.

Only then can cooperation from the majority of residents be expected in cracking down on terrorist groups, and thus the space for terrorist activities be constantly squeezed until they have no room to exist.