China opposes all terrorist activities and will work closely with the international community to combat terrorism, the Ministry of Public Security said yesterday.

Ministry spokesman Wu Heping said this at a news briefing after police in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region reported on Monday that they'd killed 18 terrorists and arrested 17 others during a Friday raid on a training camp of the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM). One policeman was killed and another injured during the raid.

Wu said China opposed "all forms of terrorism" and that its anti-terrorism effort included prevention, offensive action and more international cooperation.

The UN and the US listed the ETIM, which is pursuing an independent "Eastern Turkistan," as a terrorist group in 2002, and according to Xinhua News Agency, over 1,000 of its members are believed to have received training from Al-Qaida. The Ministry of Public Security placed it on a list of "East Turkistan" terrorist organizations in 2003.

Official data shows that the group plotted over 200 violent incidents, including explosions, assassinations, arson, poisonings and assaults in Xinjiang and in other countries between 1990 and 2001, killing 162 people and injuring 440.

Other identified "East Turkistan" terrorist organizations are the East Turkistan Liberation Organization, the World Uygur Youth Congress and the East Turkistan Information Center, according to the ministry.

Wu said the Criminal Law, the State Security Law, the Shanghai Convention on Combating Terrorism, Separatism and Extremism, 11 international conventions adopted by the UN and ratified by China and a series of anti-terrorism agreements adopted by the UN Security Council provided the legal guidelines used by the government to identify terrorists and their organizations.

(China Daily January 10, 2007)