Greek police surround hijacked bus near Athens

ATHENS - Two armed hijackers of a Greek bus want to go to Athens airport, the chief of the company that owns the bus said on Wednesday.

"I talked with one of the passengers on the bus over her mobile phone and she told me the gunmen want a new driver to take them straight to the airport so they can leave the country," Nikos Koutsogiorgos, head of the company that owns the bus, told reporters.

Greek police surrounded a bus carrying 26 passengers that was seized by two armed hijackers along a highway from an Athens suburb on Wednesday, police said.

They said gunshots had been heard, but that they did not yet know who the gunmen were, why the Marathon-Athens bus had been hijacked or if they had any demands.

"A group of two people, both foreigners, took over the bus this morning," a police official told Reuters. "There are 26 passengers on the bus that left Marathon this morning en route to Athens."

"Shots were heard, police cars rushed to the scene and more shots were then heard. The bus is stopped, police have surrounded it."

A group of negotiators have arrived at the scene to talk to the gunmen, he said.

Hundreds of police officers, snipers in camouflage and special forces took up positions around the vehicle, while one police car, flashing its lights had parked behind the bus.

There have been no reports of any injuries, but a police official said one of the gunmen was seen approaching the front of the bus and firing off two warning shots.

The driver of the bus and the ticket inspector managed to escape early on in the hijacking along with one passenger and told police the gunmen were Albanians.

"He (the driver) has told police that there were two of them and that they are Albanians," the source said.

A police spokesman said the gunmen carried hunting rifles and that they were most likely Albanians.

"We cannot say it a hundred per cent but it is very likely according to our information," he said.

An eyewitness told Greek television he saw the driver of the bus run away from the vehicle and then he heard shots.

The curtains in the bus windows have been closed, blocking views inside, and a police helicopter hovered above. Television pictures had earlier shown one man carrying a rifle and standing inside the bus near the front seats.

Police cars blocked traffic along the busy eastern Athens highway leading to Marathon and kept news crews hundreds of metres (yards) away. Dozens of ambulances could be seen parked nearby.

This is the first such incident since two deadly bus hijackings by Albanian gunmen shocked the country five years ago.

- REUTERS