BEIJING – In an audacious and deadly attack just days ahead of the Beijing Olympics, two men from a mainly Muslim ethnic group rammed a truck and hurled explosives at jogging policemen in China’s restive far west Monday, killing 16 police officers.

The attack in a city near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border brought an immediate response from China’s Olympic organizers, who pronounced security precautions ready to ensure safety in Beijing and other Olympic venues when the games open Friday.

Monday’s attack in Xinjiang also underscored that with so much security focused on Beijing, areas far from game venues make tempting targets that could also diminish China’s Olympic moment.

“We’ve made preparations for all possible threats,” Beijing Olympic organizing committee spokesman Sun Weide told reporters when asked about the Xinjiang attack.

“We believe, with the support of the government, with the help of the international community, we have the confidence and the ability to host a safe and secure Olympic Games.”

Xinjiang has, for decades, seen a sporadically violent rebellion by a local Muslim Turkic ethnic group known as Uighurs against Chinese rule.

Military and police commanders have said Uighurs fighting for what they call an independent East Turkistan pose the biggest threat to the games.

In Monday’s attack, two Uighur men rammed a dump truck into 70 border patrol paramilitary police as they passed the Yiquan Hotel during a routine early morning jog in the city of Kashgar, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

After the truck hit an electrical pole, the pair jumped out, ignited the homemade explosives and “hacked the policemen with knives,” Xinhua said. The assailants, ages 28 and 33, were arrested, the report said.

There were no civilian casualties, as few people were on the streets so early in the day, state media and witnesses said.

Fourteen officers were killed on the spot and two others died on the way to the hospital, while another 16 officers were wounded, Xinhua said.