NEW DELHI, August 8, 2008 (AFP) - Tibetan Buddhist monks Friday tried to storm the heavily guarded Chinese embassy complex in New Delhi as the Olympic Games opening ceremony got underway in Beijing, police said.

Up to 150 saffron-clad monks drove up to the embassy in two buses and tried to tear down steel barricades in front of the fenced embassy in New Delhi's diplomatic Chanakyapuri district, a police spokesman said.

As the police tackled the Tibetan exiles, some ran through the barricades towards the embassy walls but were stopped, the official said.

'We've further strengthened security at the embassy and taken the monks into preventive custody,' the police spokesman told AFP.