Chinese police foil terrorist plot targeting Beijing Olympics

China's Ministry of Public Security announced on Thursday that the police had arrested 45 people allegedly involved in a plot to kidnap athletes and others at the Beijing Olympics, AFP reports. The arrests followed two crackdowns on a Muslim terrorist group in the Xinjiang region in northwest China.

According to Ministry of Public Security spokesman Wu Heping, the plot involved kidnapping foreign journalists, tourists, and athletes, and carrying out suicide attacks during the Olympics in order to sabotage the event.

Wu said the plotters are connected with the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), which is listed as a terrorist organization by the United Nations and the US.

The crackdowns took place in late March and early April in several areas of Xinjiang including the regional capital Urumqi, AFP reports. Wu did not say why the government had delayed releasing the information.

In January, Chinese police also cracked a plot by ETIM to stage attacks in Beijing and Shanghai using toxic materials and explosives, Wu said in a statement posted on the government website, AFP writes.

During the crackdowns in Xinjiang, police allegedly seized a significant amount of explosives and literature calling for Islamic war, according to ABC Australia.

China maintains that the activities of the ETIM continue to present a serious security threat. "However, the arrests of the two groups show that Chinese police are well prepared and capable of foiling any sabotage," China Daily quotes Wu as saying.

Some experts and exiled Muslim Uighurs say China is exaggerating the threat posed by the ETIM in order to justify tighter control on dissent and on the Xinjiang region, AFP writes.

Zhou Yongkang, the ruling Communist Party's top official on security matters says that the nation's police must "strike hard" in order to maintain social stability ahead of the Olympics, AFP writes.

"Stability is an important task and is our number one responsibility," AFP quotes Zhou as saying.

In March, authorities managed to foil a separate attempt to blow up a Chinese airliner heading from the Xinjiang region to the capital.