China dismantled a major bomb-making network and arrested five suspected extremists at the start of a major nationwide "war on terror" that has seen armed police, helicopters and the military deployed in major cities including Beijing and Shanghai.

Police in Hotan, a remote town in the troubled western province of Xinjiang, closed two bomb workshops, seized 1.8 tons of material for making explosives, and arrested five members of an "alleged terror and extremist group",