KASHGAR, China - Eighteen “foreign agitators” have been arrested a day after a bomb attack killed 16 police in the restive Xinjiang region, an official said on Tuesday.

However, Kashgar Party Secretary Shi Dagang told reporters that the people arrested were linked to an earlier incident of unrest.

The city in Xinjiang where a bomb attack killed 16 police was calm under sweeping security measures, three days before the Beijing Olympics.