China said Thursday that it had uncovered a plot by members of a Muslim minority group to sabotage the Beijing Summer Olympics with suicide bombings and kidnappings of foreign visitors. Chinese officials offered no evidence to back up the allegations, the latest in a series of dramatic terrorism charges against ethnic minorities in the run-up to the Summer Games. China says violent separatists are behind recent unrest in Muslim and Tibetan areas that has drawn increased attention to China's treatment of minority groups. Pro-Tibetan protesters have also outraged China by disrupting sections of the global Olympic torch relay. Last month, authorities in Beijing accused followers of the Dalai Lama of plotting suicide bombings inside China.

Members of the Muslim Turkic Uighur minority in parts of western Xinjiang province have staged a struggle for a breakaway state, accusing Chinese communist authorities of suppressing their culture and religion.

Public Security Ministry spokesman Wu Heping said at a news conference that 35 people had been arrested in Xinjiang over recent weeks for plotting to kidnap athletes, foreign journalists and other visitors to the August Olympics.

He identified two of the men as Abdulrahman Tuersun and Kuerban Mutalifu, both traditionally Uighur names.

He said the gang hatched the plot in November and traveled through Xinjiang last month seeking recruits, including those skilled in weapons and explosives production.

They also sought fanatics to carry out suicide bomb attacks in Urumqi, Xinjiang's capital, and other Chinese cities, Wu said. He didn't say whether any volunteers had been found or whether any attacks were imminent, but said police decided to "neutralize the threat" after collecting sufficient evidence.

Wu said police confiscated almost 22 pounds of TNT-based explosives, eight sticks of dynamite, two detonators, and "jihadist" literature in raids in Urumqi.

"They wanted to make a global impact to sabotage the Beijing Olympics," Wu said, adding: "We face a real terrorist threat."

Nicholas Bequelin, a Xinjiang expert with Human Rights Watch in Hong Kong, said Beijing has undercut its credibility by consistently labeling criminal acts, anti-government violence and peaceful dissent as terrorism.

"The experience around the world since the launch of the global war on terrorism, has taught the international community how easily threats of terrorism can be manipulated by authoritarian governments for their own purposes," Bequelin said.

Wu also provided new allegations about a plot Chinese officials said they broke up in January.

Xinjiang's top Communist Party official said last month that two people were killed and 15 captured in raids on members of a radical Islamic Xinjiang independence group, the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, who were conspiring to disrupt the Olympics.

Wu said Thursday that they had been plotting to attack hotels, government offices and military targets in Shanghai, Beijing and other cities with poison, poison gas and remotely controlled bombs.

Wu said 10 men had confessed and police had seized materials and equipment used to make bombs and poison, along with a large amount of jihadist training materials.

During his presentation, police showed a film of a variety of bottles and boxes with brand names printed on their labels in Chinese, along with vehicles, an electronic scales and machinery they said they confiscated in the raids.

Written By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN

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