Five people have been arrested over a fatal car crash in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, as Chinese police described it as a terrorist attack for the first time.
The incident took place directly underneath the iconic portrait of Chairman Mao, which hangs on the Tiananmen Gate at the north end of the square, and represents one of the country's most symbolic locations.
The 4x4 vehicle left the main highway that crosses the square and veered into a crowd of tourists queuing to visit the Forbidden City, before bursting into flames.
The three occupants of the car were killed, while two tourists - one Chinese and one Filipino - also died, and at least 38 people were injured.
Initially, Chinese authorities said the incident was a car crash, but they have now said it was "a violent terrorist attack which was carefully planned, organised and premeditated".
Five people were killed in what authorities are now calling a terror attack Police said knives, iron rods, fuel and a flag imprinted with religious slogans were found in the vehicle.
The authorities said that the three people in the car were from the same family - a man, named as Usmen Hasan, his wife and mother.
It is claimed they set light to the petrol inside the car causing it to catch fire.
The names released for the dead and the five suspects suggest they are members of the Muslim Uighur people of the western Xinjiang province.
The car also had a licence plate identifying it as being from that region.
The Uighurs have accused the Chinese government of violently eroding their religion and their culture.
They consider themselves to be culturally and ethnically much closer to the central Asian nations than to China and claim their ethnic identity is being diluted by the co-ordinated mass migrations of Han Chinese, the country's majority ethnic group, into the province.
Screens were put up to hide the area while a clean-up was carried out The Chinese central government in Beijing, more than 2,000 miles to the east, has long claimed the Uighurs are waging a campaign of violence in an effort to secure themselves an independent state.
Incidents of violent clashes between Chinese state security forces and Uighurs in Xinjiang are common.
However, facts are extremely hard to verify independently because foreign journalists are restricted from reporting in the region.
At the time, no mention of Monday's crash was made on state television.
Chinese language newspapers reported simply that there was an accident in Tiananmen Square, although the English language state-run newspapers included the suggestion that there may be links to the Uighur people of Xinjiang Province.
As authorities stepped up security in Xinjiang, Dilxat Raxit, a spokesman for the main exiled Uighur group, the World Uyghur Congress, warned against believing China's side of the story.
"Beijing has always made these kind of accusations, but they refuse to make public the reasoning behind them," he said.
"They will not make the story behind the accusations transparent."
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