[Slonopotam845]

BEIJING - CHINA said a riot that shook the capital of the western Xinjiang region on Sunday killed 140 people and the government called the ethnic unrest a plot against its power, signalling a security crackdown.

Locals took to the streets of the capital, Urumqi, some burning and smashing vehicles and confronting ranks of police and anti-riot troops.

The death toll from the rioting has risen to 140, the semi-official China News Agency quoted Li Zhi, the Communist Party Boss of Urumqi City, as telling a news conference on Monday morning.

A separate report from the official Xinhua news agency had said the unrest injured 816, according to regional police authorities. That report had put the dead at 129.

The government put the number of people on the streets on Sunday at 300 to 500 while other sources had it as high as 3,000.

Chinese police have arrested 'several hundred' who participated in the violence, including more than 10 key players who fanned unrest, Xinhua said.

The riot followed a protest in Urumqi - a city of 2.3 million residents 3,270 km west of Beijing - against government handling of a late June clash between Han Chinese and Uighur factory workers in far southern China, where two Uighurs died in Shaoguan.

On Monday morning 'the situation was under control", Xinhua said. There were no immediate reports of violence in other parts of Xinjiang.

But a senior official there swiftly delivered the government claim that the unrest was the work of extremist forces abroad, signalling a security crackdown in the already tense and strategic region near Pakistan and central Asia.

The 'three forces' refer to groups the government says engage in separatism, militant action and religious extremism.

'In Xinjiang, nothing is worth speaking of without stability,' said Nuer Baikeli, a Uighur. -- REUTERS