KABUL – U.S. forces in Afghanistan have attacked networks of anti-Chinamilitants in action likely to please Beijing which had called for Westerncooperation in its fight against the group it says wants to split off itsXinjiang region.

The strikes in northern Afghanistan’s Badakhshan province destroyed Talibantraining camps which support militant operations in Afghanistan as well asoperations by the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) in the borderregion with China and Tajikistan, Afghanistan’s NATO-led mission said in arelease on Thursday.

“The U.S. strikes in support Afghanistan in reassuring its neighbors thatit is not a safe sanctuary for terrorists who want to carry outcross-border operations,” it said.

The force gave no more details about the attacks or any estimate ofcasualties but it said the ETIM was behind attacks both inside and outsideChina and two of its members had been involved in a 2002 plot to bomb theU.S. Embassy in Kyrgyzstan.

“They pose a threat to China and enjoy support from the Taliban inBadakhshan and throughout the border region,” the force said.

The group is drawn from members of China’s Uighur minority, a mostly MuslimTurkic-speaking people who inhabit the Xinjiang region in China’s far west.

China has long been concerned that instability in Afghanistan could spillover into Xinjiang.

Hundreds of people have been killed in violence in recent years inXinjiang. Beijing blames the bloodshed on Islamist militants andseparatists, though rights groups say the unrest is more a reaction torepressive Chinese policies.

The United States, Britain and the United Nations have listed the ETIM as aterrorist group. – Agencies