Togo team should not have taken bus says local officials

Togo's national soccer team was told not to travel by bus to the Angolan province of Cabinda, a soccer official said on Saturday, a day after gunmen ambushed the players as they drove to the African Nations Cup.

The attack, which killed the bus driver and wounded nine people, including two players, came five months before neighbouring South Africa hosts the World Cup, the first African nation to hold the world's biggest single sport event.

Virgilio Santos, an official with African Nations Cup local organizing committee COCAN, told weekly sports newspaper A Bola no team should have travelled by bus through Angola.

"We asked that all delegations inform us when they would arrive and provide the passport number of their players. Togo was the only team not to respond and did not inform COCAN it was coming by bus," Santos told the newspaper.

"The rules are clear: no team should travel by bus. I don't know what led them to do this."

Former Togo coach Otto Pfister said the assault would cast a shadow over the World Cup in South Africa.

"This is a real blow for Africa. It will obviously be linked directly with the World Cup now," he told German sports news agency SID. "And it will give the critics a boost."

Togo captain Emmanuel Adebayor, who was on the bus but escaped unharmed, said his team might quit the African Nations Cup, which was due to open on Sunday and in which some of soccer's most valuable stars were due to play.

A shaken Adebayor, who joined Manchester City for a reported 25 million pounds ($40 million) last year, agreed the attack hurt Africa's image.

"We keep repeating (that) Africa, we have to change our image if we want to be respected and unfortunately that is not happening," Adebayor told the BBC World Service.

"A lot of players want to leave. They have seen death and want to go back to their families," he said.

AMBUSH

Cabinda, the target of attacks by separatist rebels even after Angola's 27-year civil war ended in 2002, is responsible for half of the daily oil production in Angola, which rivals Nigeria as Africa's biggest oil producer.

The Togo team bus, travelling from its training ground in the Republic of Congo, had just entered the enclave when it came under heavy gunfire.

A crisis meeting is expected to take place in the Angolan capital Luanda between local officials and the Confederation of African Football (CAF) over tournament security measures.

Any fallout from the attack will be watched closely by South Africa, which has spent at least 13 billion rand ($1.7 billion) on new stadiums and infrastructures for the upcoming Cup.

South Africa's President Jacob Zuma will attend Sunday's opening ceremony as planned despite the attack, his spokesman said on Saturday.

CAF has said the tournament, which ends on January 31, would go ahead and the Angolan government said late on Friday all teams would still take part.

There has been no official suggestion matches will be pulled from Cabinda, wedged between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of Congo and one of four provinces chosen to host matches.

Three other teams -- Cote D'Ivoire, Burkina Faso and Ghana -- were due to play in the area.

The Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda (FLEC), which has fought for the independence of the province, claimed responsibility for the attack.

FLEC was not thought to be a serious risk. In December, Angolan minister without portfolio Antonio Bento Bembe, a former FLEC fighter, said the group no longer existed.

He said all that remained of FLEC was a few individuals who were trying to attract unhappy Cabindans with false statements.