China 'guarantees' safe Games

2008-08-05 12:01

Beijing - China declared on Tuesday it could guarantee a safe Olympics three days ahead of the Games, as it tightened security in its remote northwest following a deadly attack blamed on Muslim terrorists.

Authorities said the two assailants who killed 16 policemen wanted to carry out a "holy war" and indicated they may have links with a UN-listed terrorist group China had previously said was planning to launch attacks on the Games.

Nevertheless, Beijing Olympic organisers sought to reassure the 10 000 athletes and 500 000 other expected foreign visitors coming to China for the Games that they should not be concerned about security.

"We can guarantee a safe and peaceful Olympic Games," organising committee spokesperson Sun Weide told reporters.

China has already employed intense security throughout Beijing and across the country in the lead-up to the Games, with some veteran sporting officials saying they had not seen such a show of force since the 1980 Moscow Olympics.

Extra security forces

In Xinjiang, the remote region that borders Central Asia where Monday's attack took place, members of its Muslim Uighur ethnic group have complained for months of a massive security crackdown that has seen many people detained.

But China announced security was ramped up to another level on Tuesday across Xinjiang, and in particular the famed oasis city of Kashgar that was the scene of the assault that authorities blamed on two local Uighurs.

The official Xinhua news agency said police had increased road checks, while extra security forces had been sent to guard government office buildings, schools and hospitals.

China's public security ministry said the two men who carried out the attacks were carrying propaganda material calling for a "holy war".

In Beijing, some athletes appeared more concerned that the final preparations for the biggest event of their lives were being hampered by the city's filthy air, which has persisted despite emergency clean-up measures.

"Very bad," Turkish junior world weightlifting champion Sibel Ozkan told AFP here on Tuesday, covering her nose and mouth with a cupped hand, when asked about the pollution.

Indonesian weightlifting team official Syafraidi Cut Ali said his squad were under strict instructions to stay in the open air as little as possible. "We stay in our bedrooms and the dining rooms, not in the open," Ali said. "It is a problem."

However the International Olympic Committee's medical commission chairperson, Arne Ljungqvist, said pollution levels were not as bad as first feared and blamed the media for exaggerating the issue.

"I'm confident the air quality will not prove to pose major problems to the athletes and to the visitors in Beijing," Ljungqvist said.

He said the media's reporting had convinced such stars as Ethiopian greats Haile Gebrselassie and Kenenisa Bekele and British marathon runner Paula Radcliffe that competing here might damage their health.

- AFP