Angolan police grilled two suspects in a deadly shooting attack by separatist rebels on Togo's team which cast a long shadow Monday over the start of Africa's premier football tournament.
   
The pair were arrested in Cabinda, an Angolan enclave inside the Democratic Republic of Congo, close to the scene of Friday's attack which ended with the death of the squad's assistant coach and media spokesman.
   
"Two assailants were captured on Friday, one a few minutes after the attack and the second at the border while crossing into Congo-Brazzaville," Cabinda's deputy governor Macario Lembe told AFP.
   
"The first suspect was injured in his left thigh by police who responded when he opened fire from a tree at the Togolese bus."
   
Officials said the two suspects were part of a group of five gunmen who launched the attack with automatic weapons. The other three managed to escape.
   
The Togolese team withdrew from the African Cup of Nations following the attack and left Angola on Sunday evening for home following orders from their government, despite appeals by the players to be allowed to stay.
   
The tournament was meant to showcase Angola's recovery after a 27-year civil war which ended in 2002.

But the attack has instead shone the spotlight on the government's inability to end a low-level insurgency in oil-rich Cabinda.
   

Splinter group

A splinter group of the independence movement FLEC claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it had warned the Confederation of African Football boss Issa Hayatou against holding matches in Cabinda.
   
"This is going to continue, because the nation is at war," said Rodrigues Mingas, secretary general of the Forces for the Liberation of the State of Cabinda-Military Position (FLEC-PM).
   
Speaking at the tournament's opening match in Luanda on Sunday night, Angola's veteran  President Jose Eduardo dos Santos denounced Friday's attack.
   
"We condemn this act of terror, but the competition will continue in Cabinda," Dos Santos said.
His government and African football officials pleaded to the last for Togolese authorities to allow the players to fulfill their wish to compete in the tournament to honour their slain colleagues.
   
Togo's withdrawal has plunged the organisation of the tournament into confusion. They had been due to play Ghana in Cabinda on Monday evening but  that match has now been cancelled.
   
However the match between Burkina Faso and tournament favourites Ivory Coast, the first of the series in Cabinda, is due to kick off at 1600 GMT.

Photo: STR/EPA