China smashes terror bases

China has carried out sweeping arrests in the restive northwestern region of Xinjiang following the September 11 attacks on America

(CNN) -- Chinese authorities have smashed 44 bases of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), which Beijing says is behind massive terrorist activities in the restive Xinjiang region.

State media on Friday quoted spokesman of the Foreign Ministry, Kong Quan as saying the Chinese police had dealt a big blow to the ETIM.

"The goal of the ETIM is to use terrorist activities to split up China and to build up a so-called East Turkestan Islamic state in China's Xinjiang," Kong said.

He added Chinese forces had searched and destroyed 44 ETIM hide-out areas and bases, and that large quantities of firearms had been seized.

Kong claimed that 166 people had been killed in recent years because of assassination, explosions and other terrorist acts perpetrated by the organization.

Funds frozen

The United Nations Security Council earlier this week formally classified the ETIM as a terrorist organization, meaning its funds would be frozen worldwide.

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Diplomatic analysts in Beijing said the Chinese army and police would take advantage of this development to try to wipe out the group -- as well as to crack down hard on other separatist Uighur organizations.

Beijing has also announced that China and Kyrgyzstan will hold joint anti-terrorist military maneuvers along their mutual borders on October 1.

This was the first time that China had held joint army exercises with a Central Asian state.

The official Xinhua news agency reported that other members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) would send observers to the event.

Grouping China, Russia, Kazahkstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, the SCO has since September 11, 2001 tried to tighten cooperation to combat terrorism.

ETIM guerrillas are also active in Kyrgyzstan, and Washington pointed out last month that ETIM terrorists had tried to target the U.S. embassy in that country.

Chinese diplomats sources that it was partly due to the joint lobbying of China, the U.S., Kyrgyzstan and Afghanistan that the UN decided to label the ETIM a terrorist organization.