China plans "dirty bomb" drill ahead of Games

BEIJING, June 20 (Reuters) Beijing will stage a drill to test its response to a ''dirty bomb'' set off by terrorists close to a venue of next year's Olympic Games, state media reported.

The city's health department, fire brigade, environmental protection and the centre for disease control will be involved in next month's exercise, the official Xinhua news agency said.

It said a ''national medical base of nuclear and radiation incident'' had been set up at a Peking University hospital to treat victims of so-called dirty bombs, which are explosive devices packed with radioactive materials.

''If Beijing is now hit by a dirty bomb, we are able to provide more than 100 beds for the injured,'' Xinhua quoted clinic official Zhang Shulan as saying.

By relying on its own security forces for next year's Olympics, China believes it can deliver a secure Games for a fraction of the 1.8 billion dollar that Athens paid in 2004.

Anti-terrorist police carried out a simulated mass hostage rescue in the capital yesterday. In the unrehearsed ''Great Wall IV'' operation, the ''red'' side freed 20 ''athletes'' taken hostage by the ''blues'', who were acting as terrorists.

Luo Gan, a member of the nine-member Politburo Standing Committee that rules China and the country's top security official, watched the state-level operation over a video link.

''All regions and all relevant departments should enhance the consciousness of the overall situation, increase close cooperation, gather abilities and intellects all across the nation, coordinate different resources, and steadily engage the security work of Beijing Olympics in order to ensure a successful Games,'' Xinhua quoted him as saying.

China has had few problems with terrorism in recent years, although police said in January they had killed 18 people in a raid on what they described as a terrorist camp in Xinjiang.

The far-western region borders Central Asia, Pakistan and Afghanistan and is home to 8 million largely Muslim Uighurs, who were blamed for several bombings and assassinations in China in the 1990s.

REUTERS BJR PM1300