Today, 04:35 PM News24 Jeff Wicks, News24 Durban - Police and suspected armed robbers exchanged gunfire a high-speed car chase that wove through Morningside in Durban on Tuesday afternoon. The pursuit and dramatic gun battle followed an intelligence-driven operation that saw officers thwarting a bank robbery. Two men were arrested. Another two are on the run. According to several police sources, who cannot be named because they are not authorised to speak to the press, officers confronted a gang of men as they lay in wait outside the Standard Bank on Chris Hani [North Coast] Road, Briardene. Acting on knowledge gained from an informant network, Crime Intelligence agents set to work. It is understood that when the gang saw the police officers, they fled in their getaway vehicle, moving across the Connaught Interchange. “We received information that they were going to hit the bank and their vehicle was spotted outside [the bank] yesterday [on Monday]. Officers went to the bank but the suspicious car fled before they arrived. Today [Tuesday] they were spotted again at the bank and that is how this whole thing started,” a source said. As the chase wove through traffic, the gunmen and police exchanged gunfire, halting briefly on Smiso Nkwanyana [Goble] Road where the robbers ditched their car and hijacked a Mercedes-Benz. With police hot on their heels and boxed-in as reinforcements descended, the robbers rammed a police car that obstructed their escape before abandoning the car and rushing into a clothing shop on Stamford Hill Road. In the aisles of the shop, one gunman was shot and wounded by police officers and the other was felled by a police dog. Officers recovered an AK47 and a pistol that were used in the shooting. The crime scene has been cordoned off. Police spokespeople were not immediately available for comment.
(FRANKS..) Continue reading the main story Nigeria abductions Politics and parents Malala's appeal Hostage negotiations Military failings Six months since militant Islamist group Boko Haram sparked global outrage by abducting more than 200 girls from Chibok town in north-eastern Nigeria, the government has still failed to secure their release. The BBC's Will Ross spoke to the parents of some of the girls about their ordeal. In the remote farming community of Chibok, the agony is only getting worse. The parents and other relatives of the missing 219 school girls complain that they have been left to rely on a diet of rumour from the media and a long list of unfulfilled promises from the politicians. "The government must do more to get the girls back. Some parents are already dying. About six women have g...