Three explosions hit the Borrusia Dortmund team bus in the immediate proximity of the entrance to the team’s hotel in the Dortmund district of Höchsten. This occurred just 90 minutes before the kick-off of the Champions League quarter-final tie between the German side and AS Monaco.
According to reports, the explosives were hidden in a hedge close to a car park and were detonated remotely. The game was postponed until Wednesday evening. There were no significant casualties but defender Marc Bartra was hit by shards of glass and has undergone surgery since. A police officer accompanying the bus was also injured.
In recent developments, Frauke Köhler, a spokeswoman for the Federal Prosecutor’s Office of Germany, said that two people with an “Islamist background” had been taken into custody
Köhler said three letters had been found near the scene, all of which suggested a possible radical Islamic motive. Köhler said the letter demanded that “Germany should repeal its Tornado aircraft from the campaign in Syria, where they are used for reconnaissance and where the Islamic State is under attack from a multinational coalition trying to push it from its strongholds”. The full text of the letter has not been released publicly. The letter also demanded what it termed “the closure of the Ramstein Air Base,” Köhler said, a reference to the main airport for American and NATO military forces in Germany.
No further detail has been revealed about the two people who had been taken into custody other than that they were “from the Islamist spectrum”.
While no terror act can ever be tolerated, it is unfortunate that sports too have to suffer this fate when most people use it as an escape to the political and social turmoil surrounding the world.
In 2016, Islamic State militants attacked a cafe in Iraq frequented by supporters of the Spanish football club Real Madrid, killing at least 12 people. Real Madrid then said that 16 members of a supporters club had died in the attack. “The club expresses its great sadness and offers its regards and condolences to the families and friends of the victims,” the statement said.
At least 21 people were killed in a bomb blast in northern Nigeria when they were watching a World Cup match in 2014. A suicide bomber in a tricycle taxi detonated explosives as people watched Brazil’s match against Mexico on TV.
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