A SERIES of predawn bombings on Sunday that left at least eight dead in a restive northwest town 3,000 km from Beijing, continued to rattle China's attempts for an incident-free Olympics. The explosions, which killed seven bombers and a security guard, marked a sharp step-up in violence in the remote Xinjiang region bordering Afghanistan, Pakistan and parts of Ladakh.

The bombings started around 2.30 am (5 am India time) in Kuqa, a town of four lakh people in Xinjiang. A week before the Olympics, a suspected terror attack in Xinjiang's Muslim Kashgar town had killed 16 policemen and injured 16.

About 15 attackers targeted government offices using a tricycle, a taxi and crude explosives. The first of a dozen explosions occurred when the attackers drove a three-wheeler into the yard of a public security bureau, killing a security guard and injuring two civilians.

Police arrested one bomber, shot his partner and injured another. State media reported that at 8.20 am (10.50 am India time), police found five bombers hiding under a market counter, tossing explosives made of pipes and liquid gas at them.

Police shot two dead and three blew themselves up. "The purpose of the attacks is to separate the region from China," Wang Wei, a senior official of the Games' organising committee, said.

Wang blamed the attack on 'East Turkestan terrorists'. Beijing considers the remote Xinjiang region with a largely Muslim and 8 million strong Turkic-speaking minority a terror threat for the Games because sections of the population resent a growing influx of the Han Chinese and government curbs on religious freedom.

Beijing has blamed a group called the East Turkestan Islamic Movement for alleged terror attacks, including the failed sabotage of a flight from Xinjiang's capital Urumqi to Beijing in March. The Movement claims it is fighting for an independent Xinjiang.

The attacks, coming a day after an American tourist was stabbed to death at a tourist spot in Beijing and his wife seriously injured, rattled the capital which hoped to host a smooth Olympics with a one-lakh-strong security force. Kuqa, 740 km from Urumqi, was shutdown under a security cordon after the attacks, with all stores, institutions and enterprises ordered closed.