China claims to have foiled a planned terror attack on the Olympic Games as well as a plot to crash an airliner flying to Beijing. It was announced yesterday that two alleged terrorists were shot dead and 15 others were arrested in January during a raid on a flat in Urumqi, capital of the so-called Xinjiang autonomous region.

The regional secretary of the communist party, Wang Lequan, said it was “obvious” that an attack on the Olympics was being planned.

Meanwhile, the jet airliner plot was revealed by the governor of Xinjiang and Mr. Wang’s second-in-command, Nur Bekri, who claimed that inflammable liquid was discovered on Friday aboard a China Southern flight. The plane made an emergency landing in the city of Lanzhou and two passengers were arrested, he said.

Both plots were outlined at the annual meeting of China’s parliament, the National People’s Congress. However, no reasons were given as to why they had not been made public earlier.

Xinjiang is the home of the Muslim Uighur minority group, and has a record of anti-Chinese agitation, having briefly declared independence as “East Turkestan” in 1945. Although described as an “autonomous” region, in fact it is tightly controlled by Beijing.

A series of bomb attacks in the 1990s was attributed by the Chinese authorities to the shadowy East Turkestan Islamic Movement, which they claim continues to operate in partnership with Al Qaeda. President Bush put ETIM on a list of terrorist organizations shortly after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, allegedly in return for Chinese acquiescence in the “War on Terror.”

Uighur nationalist groups based abroad, however, say there have been no terrorist incidents in recent years and the Chinese are merely attempting to justify their harsh repression of the region.

The same parliamentary forum was used to announce that several conspiracies by the “Dalai Lama clique” had been foiled in Tibet over the past five years. Again, no details were given.