Beijing car attack ours, says Islamist group People react in Chang'an Avenue as smoke rises in Beijing's Tiananmen Square on October 28, 2013. An Islamist militant group has claimed credit for the deadly car crash at Beijing's Tiananmen Square which killed five and injured dozens of others last month, while warning of more attacks to come. The little-known group, which calls itself the Turkestan Islamic Party, released an eight-minute Uighur-language audio message from its leader, Abdullah Mansour, warning of further attacks on high-profile Chinese landmarks, according to SITE, a monitoring service which tracks Islamist forums. Chinese authorities have seized on the October 28 attack - where a four-wheel drive ploughed through pedestrians before bursting into flames under the square's portrait of Mao Zedong - as proof of a mounting security threat in the far-western province of Xinjiang, where it says Uighur separatist groups operate. A report published on Monday by Oriental Outlook, a weekly magazine which runs under the auspices of the official news agency Xinhua, highlighted what it said was a surge in "violent terror" attacks in Xinjiang last year. It said more than 190 cases were recorded, mostly orchestrated by young "lone wolf" militants or small, loosely-organised groups. But Uighur rights groups and academics say the threat has been exaggerated to justify tighter government controls on the region. Before the 2008 Beijing Olympics, this so-called Turkestan Islamic Party posted videos and alleged it was responsible for explosions in Shanghai, Wenzhou and Kunming. But later police refuted this," prominent Uighur academic Ilham Tohti said. Many Uighurs have long resented controls imposed by Beijing, including a campaign against women wearing traditional headscarves and other restrictions on religious expression. An inflow of majority Han Chinese migrants into the area has also resulted in ethnic tensions in the resource-rich region. Chinese authorities have blamed the October attack on the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, which was first recognised as a terrorist organisation by the United States in 2002. In 2011, some experts said they believed ETIM had reformed under the name of the Turkestan Islamic Party, but there remains uncertainty among experts as to whether it still operates.