Cops Die in China Granade Strike

5:56am UK, Monday August 04, 2008

Sixteen policemen have been killed in a grenade attack in China's north west.

Police in Kashgar

The assault, which left a further 16 officers wounded, raised security fears four days before the Beijing Olympics.

The attack started when two men rammed a lorry into a police station in the Xinjiang city of Kashgar.

They then threw two grenades before both were arrested, the Xinhua news agency reported.

China has warned repeatedly of a major terrorist threat emanating from Xinjiang, saying that militants there were planning to attack the Olympics.

However rights groups and members of the ethnic Muslim Uighur population in Xinjiang have accused the government of exaggerating the threat as cover to crackdown on all forms of dissent.

Xinjiang, a vast area that borders Central Asia, has about 8.3 million Uighurs, and many are unhappy with what they say has been six decades of Chinese rule.

China has deployed more than 100,000 security personnel to provide security for the Games, which begin on Friday and end on August 24.