BEIJING yesterday demanded that Chinese citizens found fighting for the Taliban in Afghanistan should be handed over to face justice - a demand that will alarm human rights groups and test China's fledgling anti-terror alliance with the United States.

Zhang Qiyue, a foreign ministry spokesman, said China had been informed that ethnic Uighurs from the far western province of Xinjiang had been caught in Afghanistan.

She said: "Once they are determined to be Chinese citizens, the relevant side should hand them over to the Chinese side so as to handle them according to law."

She repeated claims that "hundreds" of Uighur separatists had been trained in Afghan terrorist camps, and said the detainees had "close association with international terrorist forces".

A senior American anti-terrorist envoy, Gen Francis Taylor, confirmed last week that anti-Taliban forces had captured "people from western China" in Afghanistan.

Uighur militants have carried out bombings and assassinations in Xinjiang, which was overrun by Communist forces in 1949, ending a brief period of independence as East Turkestan.