Beijing - China has sentenced to death two men convicted of a terrorist attack on police officers in August in the restive central Asian region of Xinjiang, state media said on Wednesday.

The Intermediate People's Court in Xinjiang's Kashgar district sentenced the two men after finding them guilty of "intentional homicide and illegally producing guns, ammunition and explosives," the government's Xinhua news agency quoted court officials as saying.

The attack on August 4 in Kashgar, China's westernmost city, killed 17 paramilitary police and left 15 injured, the government said earlier.

The court said the two men, both Uighur, a Muslim ethnic group, were influenced by "religious extremism" and had "conducted the terrorist attack to sabotage the Beijing Olympic Games," which began on August 8.

It said the convicted men were local residents named Abdurahman Azat, 33, and Kurbanjan Hemit, 28.

The August 4 attack was among a string of deadly assaults carried out against government, police and security personnel in Xinjiang before and during the Olympics.

At least 26 people were killed in a 10-day period, according to Chinese government reports.

Earlier reports, some of which had conflicting details, said the attackers in Kashgar drove a truck into a squad who were jogging outside their compound.

The men then threw homemade explosives and hacked at the officers with knives, state media said.

But some foreign witnesses said more attackers appeared to be involved and said they heard no explosions. (dpa)