China's state news service says a series of bomb blasts has occurred in the north-west Xinjiang province. It is said that up to six people may have been killed in this morning’s blast. The blasts happened before dawn in a major town in southern Xinjiang more than 3,000 kilometres from Beijing. The New China News Agency said two police officers and a security guard were wounded in the attacks on a police station and the office of industry and commerce in Kucha.

The Turkestan Islamic Party is a group which released a video on Wednesday showing a burning Olympic logo and warning Muslims not to go to the Games. The purpose of the video might have been to save the Muslims from their violent intentions regarding the Olympics.

Also about 300 people were seen gathered in front of the Chinese embassy in Ankara on Friday. Apparently most of them were Uighur refugees from China's Muslim-majority region of Xinjiang. They were denouncing human rights violations in China ahead of the opening of the Olympic Games.

A combined grenade and knife attack killed 16 people in Kashgar, a remote city near China's far north-western border with Pakistan. On Monday morning 16 policemen were killed and 6 others injured when attackers threw two grenades into a police station in the desert oasis town of Kashgar.

For years Chinese forces have battled a separatist movement among the Uighur people. They are a Muslim central-Asian race different from the majority Han Chinese (which account for 92 per cent of the population).

China says it eradicated more than a dozen terrorist networks which aimed at disrupting the Games, although this hasn’t been sustained by any evidence. On the other hand, the Uighur people feel that the 2008 Olympics is the perfect opportunity for them to be even more persecuted.