Police in China are detaining five people in connection with what is now officially being called a “violent terror attack” at the gates of Tiananmen Square in Beijing being linked to Muslim unrest in the far Northwest.  Five people died when the Jeep plowed through a crowd and burst into flames.

Two of those killed in Monday’s incident were tourists, a woman from the Philippines and a man from Guangdong province in southern China.

A Beijing Municipal police spokesman says the Jeep’s driver was Usmen Hasan; he was accompanied by his mother, Kuwanhan Reyim, and his wife, Gulkiz Gini.  They perished in the fire.  Their vehicle sported a Xinjiang license plate.  That region has seen episodes of deadly violence in recent years, as Han Chinese from the east continue to crowd the Uighur Muslim residents.

Beijing cops say the five men they arrested are also Uighur Muslims like the dead trio from the Jeep, and allegedly had in their possession jihadi flags and long swords.