China says warning shots and teargas only. Residents were under attack and many police officers were injured, Beijing claims. And stories coming out of Tibet sound bad.

The International Campaign for Tibet condemns the Chinese government’s excessive use of force against a peaceful demonstration, while the Chinese government news agency Xinhua says the Dalai Lama clique is responsible for causing unrest and damaging property.

Meanwhile, in a piece of bitter irony, The Buddhist Blog notes the U.S. has removed China from its list of worst human rights offenders.

The BBC has good coverage of this ongoing crisis. Here are the headlines:

Deaths Reported in Tibet Protests (an “unspecified number” of dead)

Eyewitness accounts: Tibet clashes

Tibet poses dilemma for Beijing (especially with the summer Olympics approaching)

Eyewitness: Monk ‘Kicked to the Floor’

Chinese Media Silent on Tibet (so the rest of us shouldn’t be)

The Chinese police fired on protesters in Lhasa. There were deaths — no word on numbers yet. The U.S. and E.U. urged “restraint” for the Chinese.

Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, said the protests were a result of public resentment of the “brute force” employed by China to maintain control of the region for more than 50 years.

“I therefore appeal to the Chinese leadership to stop using force and address the long-simmering resentment of the Tibetan people through dialogue with the Tibetan people,” he said in a statement issued from his base in India.

“I also urge my fellow Tibetans not to resort to violence.”

More than 100 Buddhist monks kicked off the protests early Friday, which quickly attracted hundreds of other Tibetans and saw one of the biggest markets in Lhasa as well as cars set ablaze, foreign tourists and rights groups said.

At least 900 people rioted in Lhasa, and more than 1,000 security forces were sent in to quell the unrest, the London-based Free Tibet Campaign said, citing Tibetans in the city.

The official at the medical emergency centre in Lhasa said staff were overwhelmed by the number of victims.

The estimable James Fallows at the Atlantic is clued into this too.  Too soon to precisely tell what is really happening, but once again it’s monks in soldiers’ crosshairs.

Trouble has been brewing in Lhasa since Monday:

Violent protests erupted Friday in a busy market area of Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, as Buddhist monks and other ethnic Tibetans clashed with Chinese security forces. Witnesses say the protesters burned shops, cars, military vehicles and at least one tourist bus.

The chaotic scene marked the most violent demonstrations since protests by Buddhist monks began in Lhasa on Monday, the anniversary of a failed Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule in 1959. The protests have been the largest in Tibet since the late 1980s, when Chinese security forces repeatedly used lethal force to restore order in the region.

The developments prompted the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, to issue a statement, saying he was concerned about the situation and appealing to the Chinese leadership to “stop using force and address the long-simmering resentment of the Tibetan people”.