Soldiers of the three countries practice freeing hostages in a drill (XINHUA)

Officers from the three countries listen to a command drill briefing (XINHUA)

China, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan conducted a joint anti-terror drill in Kashi in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region on May 6.

Code-named Tianshan-II (2011), the exercise consisted of three parts: command and control, freeing hostages by force, and clean-up operations at designated points. The aim of the drill was to improve the countries' abilities to respond to terrorism .

In recent years, terrorism, splittism and extremism have been colluding with "East Turkistan" terrorist forces in cross-border terrorist activities, which remain a common threat to Shanghai Cooperation Organization member states.