China says it thwarted terrorist plot
The crew of a commercial airliner foiled a plot to crash the plane late last week and Chinese police recently killed two separatists suspected of planning an attack targeting the Olympics, government officials said Sunday.
The government accounts of the apparently unrelated incidents came as China tightens security in preparation for the Aug. 8-24 Beijing Olympics, which are expected to draw 2 million visitors.
Across the country, there has been a general government crackdown against civic groups, the media, laborers, foreigners and those who might politically threaten or otherwise embarrass the government.
Both incidents occurred or originated in Xinjiang, a far western province bordering Afghanistan and Kazakhstan where there have been campaigns by ethnic Uighurs for greater autonomy from China's Han majority.
Wang Lequan, the top Communist Party official in Xinjiang, said the killing of two and arrest of 15 members of a "terrorist gang" in January, in which knives, axes, grenades and books were seized, was linked to the Games.
"The Olympic Games slated for this August is a big event, but there are always a few people who conspire to sabotage," Wang said Sunday.
Wang did not indicate why the government took six weeks to link this incident and the Olympics, or what evidence it has. Beijing said the 17 suspects collaborated with the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, a militant group that seeks an independent state for the Turkic-speaking Uighur minority in Xinjiang. Both the U.S. and the United Nations have labeled the group, which has been mostly quiet in recent years, as a terrorist group.
Wang, a Politburo member, vowed a first-strike policy against terrorists, saboteurs and secessionists who will be "battered resolutely." These "evil forces" often try to deceive the world under cover of ethnic and religious causes, he said.
Separately, the official New China News Agency reported Sunday that an attempt to crash a China Southern jet Friday traveling from Xinjiang to Beijing was stopped by the flight crew. Officials didn't provide details, citing an ongoing investigation, but said it involved more than one person.
"Some people were attempting to create an air disaster," said Nur Bekri, chairman of the Xinjiang regional government, speaking on the sidelines of China's parliament, which is in session through mid-March. "We can be sure that this was a case intending to create an air crash."
