From Monday's Globe and Mail
March 10, 2008 at 5:00 AM EDT
BEIJING — Chinese authorities have revealed two alleged terrorist plots, including one targeting the Beijing Olympics, sparking new fears that militants could be escalating their activities in the lead-up to the Games.
One of the plots was an attempt to hijack or crash a Chinese passenger jet, while the other led to a shootout where two militants were killed and five police officers were injured, officials said.
Both of the alleged plots were said to originate in China's biggest Muslim region, Xinjiang, where China has used harsh tactics to crush militants who have been fighting for greater autonomy for the region.
China has yet to provide evidence for the two reported plots, and rights groups say Beijing often exaggerates the terrorist threat to justify heavy-handed tactics in Xinjiang.
The Beijing Olympics, a crucial showcase for China's Communist rulers, have prompted the authorities to launch a huge security campaign.
An estimated 100,000 police officers, along with 100 military advisers and terrorism experts, will be deployed to protect the Games, according to a Hong Kong newspaper report.
Last month, Chinese news media reported that authorities had killed two militants and arrested 15 others in a Jan. 27 raid in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang. At the time, they said the suspects were planning an attack on Feb. 5, the anniversary of 1997 riots in which the Uyghur people, who are Muslim, had protested against Chinese rule.
But yesterday a Xinjiang leader said for the first time that the suspects had been planning to attack the Olympics. "Their aim was very clear," said Wang Lequan, the Communist Party boss in Xinjiang.
Speaking to reporters during the annual session of the National People's Congress, he said the alleged terrorists had planned "specifically to sabotage the staging of the Beijing Olympics." He vowed to launch a "strike-first" policy against the "three evil forces" of terrorists, separatists and extremists.
Earlier, Chinese reports said the Urumqi suspects had resisted arrest and threw three hand grenades at the police, injuring five of them. The police seized homemade explosives, knives, axes and other weapons at the hideout of the militants, the reports said.
The second alleged plot was said to target a passenger jet from the China Southern airline that flew from Urumqi to Beijing on Friday. At least two passengers were taken into police custody when the plane made an emergency stop in the city of Lanzhou after flight attendants discovered flammable material in the plane's toilet, according to the Reuters news agency.
Xinjiang's governor, Nur Bekri, said the suspects were "attempting to create an air disaster."
China's battle against what it calls "separatists" and "terrorists" in Xinjiang has been murky and secretive. Several bombings in the 1990s were blamed on Uyghur militants, but few attacks have been reported since then.
Thousands of suspected militants have been arrested since the 1990s in China's security crackdown in Xinjiang. Chinese authorities said they had discovered a terrorist training camp in Xinjiang in January, 2007, and that 18 alleged terrorists were killed and 17 captured in an army raid on the camp.
China has been determined to prevent any political embarrassment during the showcase Olympic event in August. In recent months, it has cracked down on dissent and arrested several Chinese activists who had called for human rights to take precedence over the Olympics.
One of the activists, the prominent lawyer Teng Biao, was released Saturday after two days in police custody. He said the police had warned him to keep quiet about his two days of detention.
Just a few weeks earlier, Mr. Teng had warned that China was launching a "co-ordinated cleansing campaign" to silence all of its "potential troublemakers" before the Olympics.
