BEIJING -- Chinese police opened fire during a "riot" in a Tibetan-populated area of southwest China, the official Xinhua news agency reported on Friday, the latest in three weeks of deadly unrest.

One local official was seriously wounded during the incident, which took place on Thursday evening in Garze county of Sichuan province, Xinhua reported.

"Local officials exercised restraint during the riot and repeatedly told the rioters to abide by the law," Xinhua quoted an official with the local government as saying.

"(But) police were forced to fire warning shots and put down the violence, since local officials and people were in great danger."

Xinhua did not give any other details in its brief dispatch.

The London-based Free Tibet Campaign, citing a source in the region, said security forces opened fire when 370 monks from the Tongkhor monastery and about 400 other Tibetans staged a protest there.

Eight Tibetans had been killed after security forces opened fire on the protesters, Free Tibet Campaign spokesman Matt Whitticase said, citing the source.

He identified seven of those people. However, he emphasized he only had the information from one source.

Whitticase said the Tibetans had been protesting over the detention of two monks on Thursday. He said the two monks had been held because they had been found with photos of exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama.

The protest was the latest in three weeks of deadly unrest pitting Tibetans against Chinese security forces.

The protests began in Tibet's capital, Lhasa, to mark the anniversary of a failed 1959 uprising against Chinese rule of the remote Himalayan region.

Four days of peaceful protests erupted into rioting in Lhasa on March 14, and the unrest spread to other areas of western China with Tibetan populations, including Sichuan province.

China says Tibetan rioters have killed 18 civilians and two policemen. Before the latest unrest, Tibetan exiled leaders said 135-140 Tibetans had been killed in the Chinese crackdown.

China has ruled Tibet since 1951, after sending in troops to "liberate" the Buddhist region the previous year.

-----  "liberate" ... yea right! ------