At least 11 dead in Rio in wave of gang attacks

RIO DE JANEIRO, Dec 28 (Reuters) At least 11 people were killed in gang attacks on buses and police posts in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro in the early hours of today, including six who were burned to death in a bus.

The violence was similar to a wave of bloodshed that hit the business capital Sao Paulo earlier this year.

Police reinforced patrols and checkpoints in Rio, which is preparing for its New Year's Eve beach party. Thousands of tourists are filling the oceanside city.

''We still do not know where the command (for the attacks) came from. There are lots of rumors out there,'' a police spokesman said.

However, a security source said the attacks were ordered by criminals jailed in Rio's high-security Bangu prison.

Firefighters said six charred bodies were found inside a city bus that was torched on busy Avenida Brasil thoroughfare by unidentified attackers. The bus company could not confirm the final number of dead.

''Due to overall chaos on the scene, police and firefighters still continue their work,'' Itapemirim bus company said in a statement.

Unidentified assailants sprayed a police post with bullets in the beachside neighborhood of Botafogo, killing a street vendor.

In another attack, in the wealthy district of Barra da Tijuca, two police officers were killed. Three buses and a police post were torched in the Bangu area on the outskirts. Police killed two attackers in the Mesquita district and arrested three people suspected of setting a bus on fire.

Over 200 people were killed in Sao Paulo after a powerful prison gang, known as the First Command of the Capital (PCC), ordered attacks on public targets in May and police retaliated in violence that continued into July.

The gang was protesting against transfers of ringleaders to tighter security prisons.

The PCC is not active in Rio, but some of the city's drug gangs have links to the PCC, police say.

Rio has one of the world's highest murder rates and crime is rampant. Last March, army troops were sent into the slums, or favelas, in a crackdown on drugs gangs.

REUTERS PDM PM1823