Four die as gang mows down cycle tourists

Four people were killed by a gang that rammed a car into a group of seven tourists making a cycling tour of Tajikistan and one of the attackers got out and stabbed the injured victims.

An indistinct video of the murders shows a dark car turning on a country road, apparently after a crash that had knocked some cyclists to the ground. It then heads straight at a second group and appears to send bodies flying.

The dead were two people from the United States, one from Switzerland and one from the Netherlands.

The attackers fled but five suspects were killed by police and at least four were detained, officials said. One was killed while resisting arrest and others were said to have been ‘‘neutralised’’.

Ramazon Rakhimzoda, the Tajikistani interior minister, said: ‘‘We are looking into all versions – accident, robbery ... including a terrorist act. The driver and passengers of a car that hit the foreign tourists got out of the car and attacked [them] with a firearm and a knife,’’ he

‘‘We are looking into all versions – accident, robbery ... including a terrorist act.’’ Ramazon Rakhimzoda, Tajikistani interior minister

added.

The Foreign Office has warned Britons travelling to Tajikistan to take ‘‘extreme caution’’ after the killings on Sunday in Sebiston, a rural settlement in the Danghara district about 90km southeast of the capital, Dushanbe.

Three cyclists – from Switzerland, the Netherlands and France – survived. Two of them had injuries, but these were not thought to be life threatening.

Photographs from the scene showed a bloodied cyclist sprawled on the ground and another apparently receiving treatment for a back wound from a person wearing latex gloves. Three mountain bikes fitted with front and rear panniers and water bottles could be seen lying on a verge.