"Get them! Strike! Strike! Strike!" dozens of Han Chinese screamed as they began chasing the trio.

Two of the men escaped.

One was not so lucky and for 30 terrifying seconds he lay on the ground as about six people kicked him repeatedly, while dozens of Han Chinese looked on yelling encouragement to the attackers.

Police soon moved in to end the attack, but not before a woman who appeared to be aged in her 30s, managed to kick the helpless man.

As police pushed the crowd away but made no attempt to arrest the assailants, the Uighur man lay on the ground with his face bloodied and in visible agony.

The attack was one of two by Han Chinese against Uighur men in China's restive Urumqi city that AFP reporters witnessed on Wednesday.

In the other near the same area minutes earlier, about 20 Han men armed with wooden bats and other weapons beat and kicked a Uighur man on a road in central Urumqi.

The beating stopped after about one minute when security forces ran in to disperse the mob. The extent of the man's injuries was unclear, as he was quickly taken away.

The mob assaults came despite a massive show of force by Chinese military and police in Urumqi following unrest on Sunday that, according to the government, left 156 people dead and more than 1,000 others injured.

After authorities blamed Uighurs for Sunday's disturbances, thousands of Han Chinese took to the streets Tuesday with shovels, meat cleavers and other makeshift weapons vowing to defend themselves.

Thousands of troops carrying semi-automatic guns and heavy batons were on Wednesday stationed along a main east-west artery through the city to separate the two communities and prevent further bloodshed.

Elsewhere the security presence was also heavy but some Han Chinese were still intent on revenge.

The beating of the Uighur man by the six people took place after the attackers had been looking at photos published in government-controlled newspapers of the bodies of Han who were reportedly killed by Uighurs in Sunday's unrest.

"Kill the Uighurs," one in the group said as he looked at the images. Later, as police tried to clear away the angry crowd, one woman shouted: "Why are you stopping us? Uighurs killed many Chinese. We should be able to attack them."

The Han are China's dominant ethnic group, making up 91.5 percent of the nation's 1.3 billion people, according to the latest government figures.

But in Xinjiang, a vast region of deserts and mountains bordering Central Asia, eight million Turkic-speaking Uighurs make up nearly half the population.

Uighurs have consistently complained about discrimination and repression under communist Chinese rule over the past 60 years, accusations the government denies.

Amid the chaos, people from both sides expressed fears for the immediate future of their city, as well as long-term relations between Muslims and Uighurs.

"This will be very difficult to resolve. There is a lot of bad blood now because of the Uighurs," said one Chinese man, Chen Xiping, 32.

"We needed this security because Urumqi has become our Baghdad."

A Uighur man named Ali said more violence was inevitable.

"There is too much hatred around now. The future looks bad," Ali said.

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