Tension high, security lockdown in riot-hit Tibet

But the Xinhua news agency said at least 10 "innocent civilians" died, mostly in fires lit by rioters, and 12 policemen were seriously injured.

It was not clear if anyone had been shot dead.

"The protesters were barbarous and violent," the official news agency quoted a tourist surnamed Dong as saying. "They ganged up on the young police officers and beat innocent people."

SECURITY SWEEP

Monks first took to the streets of Tibet last Monday to mark the 49th anniversary of an earlier uprising, and protests soon spread to adjoining regions inhabited by pockets of Tibetans.

In Lhasa on Friday, protesters, some in monks' robes and some yelling independence slogans, torched vehicles, attacked banks and offices and used stones and knives against police.

Chinese authorities have now signaled a sweeping campaign to redouble security in the region and attack public support for the Dalai Lama, who fled over the Himalayas into exile in 1959 after the failed uprising that year.

"Fight a people's war to oppose separatism and protect stability ... expose and condemn the malicious actions of these forces and expose the hideous face of the Dalai clique to broad daylight," senior regional and security officials announced after a meeting, according to the official Tibet Daily on Sunday.

Security officials, speaking to Reuters on the sidelines of China's annual session of parliament in Beijing, defended the Tibet crackdown and said there was no call for alarm.

"Having some problems crop up is nothing to make a big deal out of. We just need to deal with them in an appropriate manner," said senior army General Zhang Wentai. "It won't affect the Olympics, or the country's overall security."

(Additional reporting by Jason Subler and Lindsay Beck in Beijing, John Ruwitch in Chengdu and by Jonathan Allen in Dharamsala)