BEIJING, CHINA - CHINESE police have broken up 12 terrorist cells in the predominantly Muslim western region of Xinjiang in a pre-Olympic security blitz this year, state-controlled press said.

The groups were dismantled by police in the remote oasis city of Kashgar and were all linked to international terrorist groups, the Beijing News reported on Wednesday, quoting a local official.

The announcement by Mr Huang Sanping, the city's deputy Communist Party chief, was the latest in a series of recent revelations by China aimed at highlighting an alleged Muslim terror threat to next month's Beijing Olympics.

The official Xinhua news agency said last week that 82 suspected terrorists who were plotting attacks on the Olympics had been arrested so far this year.

It also said five 'terrorists' were shot dead in a raid in the Xinjiang capital Urumqi last week.

China has repeatedly warned of a terrorist threat from Xinjiang, which borders Afghanistan and Central Asia, and had previously announced at least five separate raids this year in the region that foiled attacks.

However, human rights groups and exiled members of the Uighur ethnic minority allege China has fabricated or exaggerated the terrorist threat as an excuse to crush all forms of dissent in Xinjiang, where Beijing's rule is unpopular.

It was not immediately clear whether the 12 groups allegedly broken up by Kashgar police included those announced earlier.

China has released no evidence of its terror plot claims.

Mr Huang was quoted saying the group's members were 'jobless drifters, ex-convicts' or people 'disgruntled with society'. There was no mention of what they were allegedly plotting to do or if any weapons had been found.

All of the cells were said to be sub-branches of international terror groups including the Eastern Turkestan Islamic Movement, or ETIM.

ETIM is listed by the United Nations and the United States as a terrorist organisation. East Turkestan is what many Muslims call Xinjiang. -- AFP