Police shot and killed three people suspected of being terrorists from Northwest China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in Shenyang, capital of Northeast China's Liaoning Province on Monday afternoon, local authorities announced.

A fourth person, a woman, was injured.

The four masked people were waving long knives and shouting jihad slogans from the 10th floor of an apartment building on Dongshunchengnei Street, Shenhe district in Shenyang, and attempted to kill policemen who knocked on their door, according to a police statement posted by the Liaoning government on its official Sina Weibo account.

The post was later removed on Monday evening.

The policemen called for back-up, including special weapons and tactics (SWAT) teams.

When two SWAT officers entered the apartment through the window, two of the suspects allegedly attacked the policemen with broadswords and the other two used "blunt tools."

The policemen fired at them at close range after warning them not to approach.

"I heard several gunshots from the residential building," an anonymous store owner told the Global Times on Monday.

"There were also many police cars and ambulances occupying the street," he said.

Another Uyghur woman was arrested by the police in the apartment with three children.

None of them were injured.

Police have not identified the suspects, and further investigation is being conducted.

Meantime, police arrested 16 people suspected of being involved in terror crimes in Shenhe district on Monday morning.

It was the latest incident in a provincial capital in China.

Terrorists attacked passengers with knives and caused an explosion at a railway station in Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang on April 30, 2014, killing three people and injuring 79 others.

A group of knife-wielding people attacked civilians at a railway station in Kunming, Southwest China's Yunnan Province on March 1, 2014, killing 29 and injuring another 143.

A deadly car crash led by religious extremists from Xinjiang killed two tourists and hurt 40 others in Tiananmen Square in Beijing in 2013.

Analysts reached by the Global Times have previously said capital cities should brace for potential terrorist threats.