Angola assault only latest violence against sports stars

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PARIS: An ambush of the Togolese soccer team that killed one person and injured nine as the squad travelled to the troubled Angolan region of Cabinda Friday is the latest in a string of attacks on sports stars.

Only 10 months ago, a dozen men armed with guns and grenades carried out a brazen assault on Sri Lanka’s cricket side in the Pakistani city of Lahore in which eight people were killed and seven squad members injured.

That attack, blamed on Pakistan-based Islamic extremists, threw a massive question mark over the future of the game in Pakistan and wrecked its chance of co-hosting the 2011 World Cup.

The assault came as the team – who had replaced an India side that pulled out in the wake of the November 2008 Mumbai attacks – was heading for the third day’s play in the second Test.

In Sri Lanka in 2008 a suspected Tamil Tiger suicide bomber detonated explosives prior to the start of a marathon that was part of the country’s New Year celebrations. The blast killed 14 people and injured dozens more.

Probably the most infamous attack on a sports team came at the 1972 Olympics in Munich, Germany, when radical Palestinians linked to Yasser Arafat’s Fatah organisation took members of the Israeli squad hostage.

The Black September militant group killed 11 Israeli athletes and coaches and a West German police officer, while police killed five of the eight terrorists in an abortive rescue attempt.

The British Grand National race, the world’s most famous steeplechase, was cancelled in 1997 following a bomb hoax after an anonymous call using code words associated with the Irish Republican Army.

In Spain, Basque separatist group ETA in 2004 forced the abandonment of a first division game between Real Madrid and Basque side Real Sociedad following a phone warning threatening the game at the Bernabeu stadium.  The 2002 Champions League semi-final between Real and Barcelona was called off in similar circumstances.

The Dakar Rally, meanwhile, was moved to Argentina from Africa two years ago after the 2008 edition was cancelled amid security concerns arising from the murder, blamed on al-Qaeda sympathisers, of four French tourists in December 2007 in Mauritania, where the rally was to spend several days. — AFP