Agencies
Beijing, Mar 19:
China said on Wednesday it was engaged in a "life or death struggle" over Tibet as it announced 105 people had surrendered over an uprising and exiled groups warned hundreds had been detained.
After days of violent protests against Chinese rule over the Himalayan region, China signalled it would step up a controversial campaign to quell the unrest despite intense international scrutiny ahead of the Olympics.
"We are currently in an intensely bloody and fiery struggle with the Dalai Lama clique, a life or death struggle with the enemy," Tibet's Communist Party leader Zhang Qingli said in an editorial in the Tibet Daily on Wednesday.
"As long as we... remain of one heart, turn the masses into a walled city and work together to attack the enemy, then we can safeguard social stability and achieve a full victory in this intense battle against separatism."
While China has insisted it has used no deadly force to quell the unrest, Tibet and other parts of the country that have seen Tibetans protests in recent days remained sealed off to the foreign press to prevent independent reporting.
Tibet's parliament-in-exile said on Monday that "hundreds" of people had been killed in the Chinese crackdown, while activists have released photos of dead Tibetans whom they say were shot by Chinese security forces.
China's official Xinhua news agency said 105 Tibetan "rioters" in Lhasa had surrendered by late Tuesday night, following a midnight Monday deadline in which they were promised leniency if they turned themselves in to authorities. China has said Tibetan protesters killed 13 "innocent civilians" on Friday last week, the biggest day of protests that began a few days earlier to mark the anniversary of a failed 1959 uprising against Chinese rule.
Tibetan government vice chairman Baema Chilain said the people who gave themselves in to police had been directly involved in "the beating, smashing, looting and arson" on Friday, according to Xinhua.
Exiled groups and rights activists said hundreds, possibly thousands, of Tibetans had been detained and were at risk of torture amid a sweep by Chinese security forces throughout Tibet and the other hotspot areas.
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