A China-bound Afghan plane diverted to Kandahar Sunday night after an alleged bomb threat arrived at Urumqi, its scheduled destination, late last night.

The Boeing 767 flight arrived in the Afghan capital of Kabul, from which it had departed, early Monday after an overnight stay in Kandahar, said Feda Mohammad Fedawi, deputy head of Kam Air.

Carrying 168 people, including five Chinese, the aircraft was earlier refused permission to land in Urumqi and made an emergency landing in Kandahar during its return because “(the) weather condition in Kabul was not suitable at that time”, Kam Air president Zamarai Kamgar reportedly said.

Pan Dongjie, a Chinese passenger on the plane, confirmed that the plane “made landing efforts in Kabul airport, but failed”.

 “Maybe it was because of strong winds,” Pan said.

An official with Kabul International Airport, however, said the plane made the unexpected landing due to some “mechanical problem”.

In Urumqi, an airport source said “the plane had descended to an altitude of about 2,000 meters when it was informed by Ground Control that there were bombs on board and that it had to turn back”.

All airport staff “received news of the bomb threat on Sunday night”, according to the source.

Pan, the passenger, also claims to have known about the bomb threat.

But both Kamgar and Afghanistan’s counter-terrorism chief Abdul Manan Farahi said there was no bomb on the plane.

Still earlier, Xinhua reported that the plane had been hi-jacked. But a press officer for NATO-led and US forces in Kabul, Chief Petty Officer Brian Naranjo, was quoted by Reuters as saying that there was no hijacking or bomb threat involved.

 “If something that significant happens we would know about it,” he reportedly said.

No official explanation has been given to explain the differing accounts. A source with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs told China Daily that it is “looking into the matter”, but refused to elaborate.

In Urumqi, Xinhua said the incident triggered “an emergency response at the airport”. All is back to normal, it said after releasing photos showing armored vehicles withdrawing from the airport yesterday.

Urumqi last month was the site of Xinjiang’s bloodiest riot in 60 years, when at least 197 people were killed and more than 1,700 were injured. Most of the victims were ethnic Hans.

Officials say terrorist and separatist forces overseas, the World Uygur Congress (WUC) in particular, were behind the riot. While the WUC rejects any association with the riot, international terrorist organizations have been recently calling for “revenge” against all Chinese.

The Algeria-based Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), an arm of Al-Qaida, has vowed to attack Chinese workers in North Africa.

A group calling itself the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP) has urged Muslims to attack Chinese for what it calls “bar-baric massacres” against Muslims in Xinjiang, which it calls “East Turkistan”.

 “Their men (Chinese) should be killed and captured to seek the release of our brothers who are jailed in East Turkistan. ... We in East Turkistan have a duty to continue to resist without desperation,” Abdul-Haq, described by an Al-Qaida-linked website as the leader of TIP, was quoted as saying by Reuters.

Uygurs, the majority of whom practice Islam, make up roughly 46 percent of Xinjiang’s population of 21 million.