Arrests were made in recent weeks after Chinese authorities said they found evidence of terrorists in the Xinjiang region planning attacks on the games, The Times of London reported Thursday.

Wu Heping, Ministry of Public Security spokesman, said 35 people had been arrested between March 26 and April 6 for plotting to kidnap athletes, journalists and other visitors to the Olympics. A second terrorist group also had been disrupted, officials said, and explosives and firearms seized.

International security experts have begun focusing on internal reports in China of a rising terrorist threat -- and the targeting of the Olympics -- in the Xinjiang region, where an insurgency has been percolating for years, the British newspaper said.