BEIJING, Sept 27 (AFP) - China has arrested a number of suspected separatists in its territory bordering Afghanistan and Pakistan as part of a security clampdown ahead of possible US military strikes in the region, local officials said Thursday. 
	
	
 Large numbers of People's Liberation Army troops have also been seen on the move in the Muslim-majority region of Xinjiang, to the far west of China, they said. 
	
	
 "Many people have been arrested in the past weeks, including suspected separatists and criminals," said an official at the minority religious affairs bureau in Kashgar, Xinjiang, China's furthest west city. 
	
	
 "Public sentencing rallies have been going on in many counties around Kashgar," the official, who identified himself only as Yakefu, told AFP. 
	
	
 He also said increasing troop movements had been seen at night around Kashgar, but was unsure where they were going or what their orders were. 
	
	
 Another official said Thursday the main expert on Xinjiang from the US embassy in Beijing had been dispatched to the region to discuss regional attitudes to the devastating terror attacks on the US two weeks ago and to Afganistan's ruling ultra-Islamic Taliban regime. 
	
	
 Diplomat Arthur Marquardt arrived in Kashgar on Saturday and left Wednesday for the provincial capital of Urumqi, said Dong Jianhua at the Kashgar foreign affairs bureau. 
	
	
 Marquardt held separate meetings with police, the minority religious affairs office and other departments, she said. 
	
	
 "They were talking about China's 'development of the West' program, China's policies on minority nationalities, our opinions on the September 11 attack and the Taliban forces," she said. 
	
	
 China has been keeping a particularly close eye on the situation in Xinjiang as expectation mounts the US will launch military action against Afghanistan, home to the suspected mastermind of the terror attacks, Osama bin Laden [Usama Bin Ladin]. 
	
	
 Foreign ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao said Tuesday China would take "all necessary measures" to ensure the stability of its border regions ahead of any US retaliatory strikes. 
	
	
 Authorities are only too aware that Kashgar is 4,000 kilometres (2,500 miles) from Beijing but only a tenth of the distance from the Pakistani border, and are desperate to ensure instability or militancy does not leak over the frontiers. 
	
	
 There have been a series of bomb blasts in recent years in Urumqi and Beijing, linked to Xinjiang separatists seeking to establish an independent state of East Turkistan. 
	
	
 However Dong of the Kashgar foreign affairs bureau said the security clampdown was usual, and linked to next week's national day holiday. 
	
	
 "This crackdown is very normal, we always do these things every year before public holidays," she said. 
	
	
 She stressed the atmosphere in Kashgar, an ancient city along the historic Silk Road, was peaceful, although tourism and border trade in the region had been affected by the security situation. 
	
	
 "Many tour groups have been cancelled, so the region's tourism has been affected," she said. 
	
	
 In neighboring Hetian city, a hotbed of Muslim separatists in the impoverished southern part of Xinjiang that also borders Pakistan, the situation was also "peaceful", said an official at the city's foreign affairs office.