Police out to enforce order for torch relay in XinJiang

The torch will spend three days in the region, which is home to around eight million Muslim Uighur people. 
Relations between Chinese authorities and the Uighurs are tense. Officials fear separatists may target the relay. 
The relay has been moved forward by a week, in an apparent attempt to avoid unrest. 

Many Uighurs resent the large-scale influx of Han Chinese settlers into the resource-rich region, and some groups are fighting to establish an independent Islamic nation, which has led to periodic violence in Xinjiang. Beijing accuses the groups of links to al-Qaeda and claims this year to have foiled at least two Xinjiang-based plots targeting the Olympic Games.

Residents indoors 
In Urumqi, very tight security was put in place ahead of the relay. Police carried out vehicle checks and set up checkpoints in the normally busy city. Local residents who live and work along the route of the torch relay were instructed to stay inside, keep well away from their windows and watch the proceedings on television, the BBC's James Reynolds reports from Urumqi.

The flame's passage through the city was peaceful, but the danger of disruption to the Xinjiang leg has not passed. On Wednesday the torch will move to the Silk Road oasis city of Kashgar, then to the cities of Shihezi and Changji on Thursday, before moving on to Tibet for a relay in Lhasa on Saturday. Kashgar is already under tight security in preparation for the torch's arrival, and soldiers and firefighters are reportedly patrolling the main square. 

The city is seen as one of the main Islamic centres in the region - more so than Urumqi. 

"Nobody is allowed to watch the torch relay tomorrow unless you are being organised by your work unit. I feel a lot of regret," Chen Guangsheng, a Han Chinese resident in Kashgar, told Reuters news agency.

"Rogge said organizers will reconsider holding such international relays for future Olympic Games."