A 107-strong Chinese military unit set off from Beijing?Thursday morning on a military plane for anti-terrorism drills in south Kazakhstan.

The drills will be the seventh anti-terrorism military exercise conducted under the framework of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

The unit will be the first People's Liberation Army (PLA) unit to arrive at the drills named "Peace Mission 2010," the Ministry of National Defense said Thursday.

China will send 1,000 soldiers - a ground force combat group, an air force combat group and a logistic group - to participate in the drills.

The first PLA unit to leave for the drills took a train Tuesday from Zhurihe, Inner Mongolia, where a PLA military training base is located. The train will travel nearly 5,000 km and arrive next Tuesday.

About 5,000 troops from China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan will participate in the drills, which will run from Sept. 9 to 25.