Topic: News: China 'guarantees' safe Games amid terror threat

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

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China 'guarantees' safe Games amid terror threat

BEIJING (AFP) — China declared Tuesday it could guarantee a safe Olympics three days ahead of the Games, as it tightened security in its remote northwest following a deadly attack blamed on Muslim terrorists.

Authorities said the two assailants who killed 16 policemen wanted to carry out a "holy war" and indicated they may have links with a UN-listed terrorist group China had previously said was planning to launch attacks on the Games.

Nevertheless, Beijing Olympic organisers sought to reassure the 10,000 athletes and 500,000 other expected foreign visitors coming to China for the Games that they should not be concerned about security.

"We can guarantee a safe and peaceful Olympic Games," organising committee spokesman Sun Weide told reporters.

China has already employed intense security throughout Beijing and across the country in the lead-up to the Games, with some veteran sporting officials saying they had not seen such a show of force since the 1980 Moscow Olympics.

In Xinjiang, the remote region that borders Central Asia where Monday's attack took place, members of its Muslim Uighur ethnic group have complained for months of a massive security crackdown that has seen many people detained.

But China announced security was ramped up to another level on Tuesday across Xinjiang, and in particular the famed oasis city of Kashgar that was the scene of the assault that authorities blamed on two local Uighurs.

The official Xinhua news agency said police had increased road checks, while extra security forces had been sent to guard government office buildings, schools and hospitals.

China's public security ministry said the two men who carried out the attacks were carrying propaganda material calling for a "holy war".

It said the explosives used by the attackers were similar to ones found in a raid last year on the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), a UN-listed terrorist group that wants Xinjiang to become an independent Muslim nation.

China's state-run media went further, saying the ETIM was likely behind the attack.

Xinjiang has about 8.3 million Uighurs, and many are unhappy with what they say has been decades of repressive Communist Chinese rule.

In Beijing, some athletes appeared more concerned that the final preparations for the biggest event of their lives were being hampered by the city's filthy air, which has persisted despite emergency clean-up measures.

"Very bad," Turkish junior world weightlifting champion Sibel Ozkan told AFP here Tuesday, covering her nose and mouth with a cupped hand, when asked about the pollution.

Indonesian weightlifting team official Syafraidi Cut Ali said his squad were under strict instructions to stay in the open air as little as possible.

"We stay in our bedrooms and the dining rooms, not in the open," Ali said. "It is a problem."

However the International Olympic Committee's medical commission chairman, Arne Ljungqvist, said pollution levels were not as bad as first feared and blamed the media for exaggerating the issue.

"I'm confident the air quality will not prove to pose major problems to the athletes and to the visitors in Beijing," Ljungqvist said.

However, IOC president Jacques Rogge had said during the one-year countdown toHe said the media's reporting had convinced such stars as Ethiopian greats Haile Gebrselassie and Kenenisa Bekele and British marathon runner Paula Radcliffe that competing here might damage their health. the Games last August that endurance events such as the marathon may have to be postponed if pollution levels were severe.

More than one million of Beijing's 3.3 million cars were taken off the roads last month and many heavily polluting factories were temporarily closed down in an effort to improve the city's air quality.

China has said it may implement further emergency measures later this week, such as taking more cars off the roads and shutting other factories.

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

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China Keeps Millions of Eyes Peeled in Massive Watch for Olympics

BEIJING —  The violence that struck the Olympics on Saturday has cast a spotlight on China's security preparations in Beijing — and those preparations have been extensive.

The country is keeping millions of eyes peeled for threats to the 2008 Beijing Olympics games. Every inch of Beijing is being monitored by 300,000 security cameras with face-recognition technology. By contrast, only 8,000 electronic eyes were employed in Athens for the 2004 Summer Games.

China's unprecedented efforts weren't enough to prevent the attack Saturday by a Chinese man, who stabbed an American to death and injured another American, as well as a Chinese tour guide, before killing himself. The Americans were relatives of the coach of the U.S. men's volleyball team.

The U.S. Embassy is treating the violence as a tragic but isolated incident. Chinese government officials have remained tight-lipped about the attack.

Experts say threats are always present.

"The threat here is everything from terrorists to criminals to crazies," Ma Xin, a security expert and Olympic adviser, said in a FOX News interview that took place prior to the Saturday attack. "Our security is multilayered and we've had to think of every eventuality."

About 130,000 police and army officers are on guard in the Chinese capital, but larger still is a much less visible security force: the 300,000 volunteers watching for suspicious activity — and carefully eying foreigners.

Some critics have questioned whether China is employing too much security, including two anti-aircraft batteries near the main stadium and many more batteries ringing the city of Beijing.

Human rights groups say the threat of terrorism has been used to silence political dissidents and voices calling for democracy. Protesters who unfurl posters or political banners in Tiananmen Square are arrested and sent straight to jail.

The International Olympic Committee says the security measures are proportionate to the threat, and China is even allowing some countries to manage their own security.

"Most of the American team is not staying at the Olympic village but at a well-guarded university campus" in Beijing, said Xin.

American athletes also shied away from the Olympic village while competing in Athens in 2004, the first summer games after 9/11. Many of the athletes stayed on ships in Piraeus harbor, which allowed the American delegation more freedom for their guard force, as they weren't directly imposing on Greek territory.

In Beijing, Olympic planners made a compromise. "Here they're staying here and we're guarding their compound but we are allowing them to have their own security," said Xin.

Both America and China are worried about possible terrorist strikes on the games, and just a day before the opening ceremonies, a new threat emerged.

The Turkistan Islamic Party released an internet video Thursday threatening an attack on the Olympics. The group, which seeks independence in China's Xinjiang region and has launched attacks in the past, says Muslims should avoid trains, planes and buses in China.

China has engineered an effective lockdown on the city of 16 million, making it difficult to get food into Beijing. That has driven up the price of fruit and vegetables by about 100 percent, the price of meat by about 40 percent.

Many Chinese workers have been affected by factory shutdowns on the edge of the city, costing hundreds of millions as the government tries to improve air quality and imposes stringent controls on trucking.

China also refused to provide many visas in advance of the games, which it said was another needed security precaution.

"The problem is not that we have become too strict — the problem is before there were practically no restrictions or control at all," Xin said. "It was out of control — anyone could enter China and we had to bring this under reasonable control."