China on Thursday claimed that it had arrested two alleged terrorist groups, thwarting their plans to kidnap foreign journalists, tourists and athletes during the Beijing Olympics.
The terrorists of the East Turkistan movement in the restive Muslim-majority Xinjiang Uygur region were sent from abroad to carry out anti-Olympic terrorist attacks, the Ministry of Public Security spokesman Wu Heping said.
He said four kgs of explosives, 18 explosive devices, seven detonators, 100 kg of raw material for making explosives and text material on starting a holy war had been recovered from the groups.
Wu said that the first group's leader Aji Muhammat and his 10-member gang had confessed to the police about their anti-Olympic terrorist attacks. They were arrested between January 4 and 11. The group members were assigned to keep hotels, government buildings and military facilities in Beijing and Shanghai under surveillance, he said.
China had recently said that it had foiled two terror plots to crash a Beijing-bound passenger plane and the other targeting the Olympics. Wu claimed that the terrorists had plotted the kidnapping of foreign journalists, tourists and athletes during the Beijing Olympics with the goal of destroying the event by creating trouble, to attract international attention.
The Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement had been secretly recruiting members and sending them abroad for terrorist training and raising funds to buy explosives, he claimed.
"They had planned to start terrorist attacks using explosives and poison in Beijing and Shanghai, starting this May, to wreck the Olympics," Wu was quoted as saying by the official Xinhua news agency.
The second group was led by Abdurahman Tursun. The police had arrested 35 suspects during a crackdown from March 26 to April 6, seized 9.51 kg of explosives, eight detonators, two explosive devices and some material advocating a holy war, he said.
The group looked for more members from March this year in Xinjiang and for people to sacrifice themselves for a holy war by carrying out suicide bomb attacks in Urumqi and other Chinese cities. China is facing threats from terrorist attacks targeted at the Olympics, he said.
Asked about China's revelations about terrorist groups, the International Olympic Committee Communications Director Giselle Davies said they had also learnt about it through news reports.
"Security (for Olympics) is a top priority. We trust that the Chinese authorities will handle it with the right approach," she told reporters. Davies said that the IOC was in constant touch with Chinese authorities on the security aspect and the Committee is being given regular updates.
