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Olympics terror plot thwarted
09/03/2008 12:51 - (SA)
Beijing - Suspected "terrorists" killed in a raid in northwest China's Muslim-dominated Xinjiang region earlier this year had been planning an attack on the Olympics, a top official said Sunday.
Separately, the Xinhua news agency quoted a high-level Xinjiang official as saying authorities Friday foiled a planned "terrorist attack" on a passenger plane flying from the regional capital Urumqi to Beijing.
Both officials were speaking on the sidelines of the national parliamentary session.
Two militants were killed and 15 arrested in the January 27 raid in Urumqi, capital of the vast Xinjiang region bordering several Central Asian republics.
Five police officers were wounded in the raid when three homemade grenades were thrown at them.
"Obviously, the gang had planned an attack targeting the Olympics," Wang Lequan, Xinjiang's Communist Party chief, told reporters.
The group had collaborated with the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), an obscure grouping that is listed by the United Nations as an international terrorist group, according to Xinhua.
"The Olympic Games slated for this August is a big event, but there are always a few people who conspire to commit sabotage. It is no longer a secret now," said Wang.
"Those terrorists, saboteurs and secessionists are to be battered resolutely, no matter what ethnic group they are from," said Wang, who is a member of the Communist Party's politburo.
Meanwhile Nur Bekri, chairman of the Xinjiang regional government, told reporters about what appeared to be a planned hijacking Friday.
The China Southern Airlines plane was forced to land in Lanzhou, capital of neighbouring Gansu province, because "some people were attempting to create an air disaster," he said.
The crew stopped the would-be attackers and all passengers and crew were safe, he added.
Nur did not elaborate, saying only that authorities were investigating "who the attackers are, where they are from and what's their background," Xinhua reported.
"But we can be sure that this was a case intending to create an air crash," he said, also on the sidelines of the National People's Congress.
The Xinjiang region of 20 million people is largely populated by ethnic Uighurs and other Muslim minorities, who have traditionally opposed Beijing's rule and clamoured for greater autonomy.
Delegates to the ongoing parliamentary session have promised to step up a crackdown on ethnic unrest, separatism and religious extremism in Xinjiang.
Eighteen alleged terrorists were killed and 17 captured in an army raid in January 2007 on what Beijing said was an ETIM training camp.
East Turkestan often refers to two short-lived republics established in Xinjiang by the Muslim Uighur minority, one in the early 1930s, the other in the second half of the 1940s.
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