Goods train attacked, two killed

A goods train was attacked late on Wednesday 120 km west of Brazzaville, capital of the Republic of Congo, leaving dead two government soldiers who were guarding it and two others wounded, sources told IRIN. The attack occurred near Kikembo, just west of Mindouli, said to be one of the last remaining rebel strongholds in the troubled Pool region, where government forces have been fighting self-proclaimed "Ninja" militias since late March. Hostilities erupted when Ninja militias attacked several government military positions in Pool, the government said. However, Ninja representatives said the clashes were provoked when they discovered government plans to arrest their leader, the Rev Frederic Bitsangou, alias Pasteur Ntoumi. However, there was some speculation that government forces, rather than Ninja, were responsible for the attack. "The military has not been paid for several months and they are starting to become disgruntled," one regional analyst told IRIN on Friday. "It would not be out of line to assume that if it was really the military who attacked the train, it was because the are hungry, desperate and resorted to the train as their only option," the analyst said, adding that widespread pillaging is occurring in Pool. While most of the fighting has been limited to Pool, rebels launched an assault on Maya Maya airport on 14 June that was quickly repelled by government forces. Passenger train services, suspended since a prior attack on 4 April, were scheduled to resume on 1 August. However, with this latest attack, they have been suspended indefinitely. The railway is Brazzaville's main commercial link to the country's economic coastal capital, Pointe-Noire.