Chinese authorities announced Sunday that they foiled two terrorist attacks, one of which was meant to sabotage the organization of the Summer Olympic Games in Beijing due to start on August 8.

Both terrorist attempts were blamed on separatists from the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. Xinjiang is inhabited by eight million Muslim Uighurs, which are a Turkic people. They shares linguistic and cultural bonds with Central Asia. Earlier this year, two members of a “terrorist gang” were killed and 15 arrested in Urumqi in a Chinese raid. The suspected separatists were allegedly planning an attack on the Beijing Olympic Games. “Their aim was very clear, which was to damage the Beijing Olympics,” said Wang Lequan, chief of the Communist Party in the Xinjiang region.

According to Lequan, the terrorist group had attacked on the orders of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), which is classified by the United States and the United Nations as a terrorist organization, counting no more than a few dozen members.

Sunday another Chinese official told Xinhua news agency that a plane belonging to China Southern Airlines, which had taken off from Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, called for an emergency landing as “some people were attempting to create an air disaster.” The members of the crew managed to thwart the militants’ attempt to hijack the plane.
“Who the people involved in the incident were, where they were from, what their aim was and what their background was, we are now investigating,” Nuer Baikeli, the Xinjiang governor, said.

A source close to the investigation, that requested to remain anonymous, told Reuters that at least two passengers on flight CZ6901, have been taken into custody for interrogation, after inflammable material was found in the plane’s toilet.

Wang Lequan, said the government was prepared to strike against the “three evil forces” in the region: terrorists, separatists and extremists.

“We are prepared to strike them when the evil forces are planning their activities,” he told Xinhua.