Three men armed with firebombs, machetes and an ax attacked Myanmar's embassy in Malaysia on Wednesday, hacking one senior official and starting a fire that destroyed the building, officials and witnesses said. Police arrested three suspected attackers and an accomplice. The four, members of Myanmar's Rohingya ethnic Muslim minority, had been turned away from the embassy on Tuesday after demanding that officials endorse documents they believed would help them win U.N. refugee status. On Wednesday morning, three of them scaled the embassy wall, an embassy spokesman said. "They started to throw petrol in plastic bags at the building and set a fire," Myint Thein Win said. "They tried to burn the ambassador's car. The minister counselor was attacked with an ax."
| Yep. They definitely sound like Muslims... |
The minister counselor, a senior diplomat, was hit in the arm and head, and a security officer was cut with a large knife. Police came to the embassy and arrested the four, who will be charged with attempted murder, arson and lacking proper travel papers. Myanamar's military government condemned the "premeditated and dastardly attack" and announced that security at its diplomatic missions worldwide has been stepped up. "The Myanmar government is fully confident that (the culprits) will be punished with the full force of the law for this cowardly attack on the embassy and for the assault on one of its members" it said in a statement issued in Yangon, the capital of Myanamar, also known as Burma. More than 30 firefighters extinguished the fire within an hour. The front of the building had collapsed and the interior was burned out. |