Tiananmen 'terrorist attack' suspects captured: CCTV

BEIJING (AFP) - Chinese authorities have captured the suspects in a fatal car crash on Beijing's Tiananmen Square, state media said on Thursday, describing the incident as a "terrorist attack" for the first time.

"The arrests were made 10 hours after the incident, which has now been identified as a terrorist attack", broadcaster CCTV said on its verified English-language Sina microblog account.

State media Xinhua reported on Wednesday that five suspectes linked to the attack were captured.

The three people who died in the sport utility vehicle were a man, his mother and his wife, and their names suggest that they are ethnic Uighurs, a Muslim people who come from China's restive far western region of Xinjiang.

Police had alerted hotels in the capital to look out for eight suspects from China's restive Xinjiang region after the incident, which killed two tourists and injured dozens in the symbolic heart of the Chinese state.

Beijing has blamed Uighur groups for what it calls "terrorist" attacks in Xinjiang, but details of alleged incidents are hard to confirm, and exile groups accuse China of exaggerating the threat to justify religious and cultural restrictions.

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