US airmen killed in airport ambush

TWO American airmen were shot dead and another left fighting for his life after a Kosovo Albanian gunman stormed their bus shouting Islamic slogans before opening fire at Germany's busiest airport yesterday.

The driver of the bus - understood to be a US airman - was one of those killed in the ambush outside Terminal 2 at Frankfurt-Main airport. A fourth man was slightly injured and both he and the seriously wounded man are being treated at the city's University Clinic Hospital.

The airport, continental Europe's second biggest after Paris, is routinely used by American soldiers based in Germany for arrivals and departures.

It is understood the soldiers were based in Germany and had just returned from a long-haul flight from the United States, although some media reports claimed they were based in the UK, at Lakenheath, the site of a huge US air base.

Police arrested a 21-year-old Kosovan man, identified as Arik Uka, just yards from the bus with the automatic weapon he used. He was also armed with a knife.

German chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters in Berlin that two American soldiers had been killed, as she condemned the "terrible incident".

"We'll do everything possible to find out what happened," she pledged.

At the airport, taxi driver Salimi Seraidon said he was sitting at a stand about 200 yards away when the attack took place, and that it was over quickly as police rushed on to the scene.

"We just heard the shots," he said.

At least one round pierced the window of the bus that contained young American airmen, all of whom were in civilian clothing.

Flights around Europe were thrown into chaos after the ambush, as a massive security operation at the airport swung into operation.

"Only time will tell if this terrible and shocking act has a terrorist background, " said Boris Rhein, interior minister of the state of Hesse.

Armed police threw a cordon around part of the terminal and sniffer dogs were used to check if any bags carrying bombs had been left in the airport building.

"We cannot exclude anything at the moment, " said the minister, "We will have to take a very close look at the perpetrator."

Police spokesman Jrgen Linker said: "Everything happened inside the bus."

Eyewitnesses said the man "infiltrated" himself among the servicemen on the bus before shouting out radical Islamic slogans and then reaching into a bag for his gun.Only last year the interior ministry in Berlin put Germany on high alert for a terrorist attack after receiving information that al-Qaeda was planning "a bloodbath" because of German involvement in Afghanistan.

The bus was a US military model and thought to have come from the massive Ramstein air force base near Cologne, in the west of Germany.

American servicemen in Germany have long been considered vulnerable to a terrorist attack: three years ago Germans who converted to radical Islam were caught planning to explode huge car bombs at American bases and civilian sites used by military personnel.

The US, along with Britain, was the major international backer of predominantly Muslim Kosovo's successful bid for independence from Serbia.

Kosovo interior minister Baj-ram Rexhepi said Uka was from Mitrovica. "This is a devastating and a tragic event," Mr Rexhepi said. "We are trying to find out was this something that was organised or what was the nature of the attack."