(Adds comment by exile group spokesman)

By Ben Blanchard

BEIJING, July 9 (Reuters) - Chinese police shot and killed five people who were seeking "holy war" in the restive far western region of Xinjiang, state media said on Wednesday, less than one month before the Beijing Olympics open.

Police in regional capital Urumqi on Tuesday raided an apartment where 15 hiding ethnic Uighurs rushed out wielding knives and shouting "sacrifice for Allah", Xinhua news agency cited an unidentified police officer as saying.

"The policemen were then forced to open fire, killing five on the spot and injuring two. The injured were sent to hospital and the other nine people were captured," he was quoted as saying.

"The suspects confessed they had all received training on the launching of a 'holy war.' Their aim was to kill Han people, the most populous ethnic group in China whom they took as heretics, and found their own state," the report added.

The police had been on the trail of three men in the group who they suspected of stabbing a Han Chinese woman at an Urumqi beauty salon, Xinhua said.

Beijing accuses militant Uighurs of working with al Qaeda to use violence to bring about an independent state called East Turkestan. It says it foiled at least two Xinjiang-based plots this year to launch attacks during the Beijing Games.

Many Muslim Uighurs resent the migration of Han Chinese to the region and government controls on their religion and culture.

World Uyghur Congress spokesman Dilxat Raxit said by telephone on Wednesday that the victims had not provoked the shooting and that they were not extremists.

"They're only asking for democracy," he said. (Additional reporting by Jason Subler; Editing by David Fox)

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