Summary Four of the Vieira's personal guards were seriously hurt and hospitalised.
BISSAU (AFP) - Heavily armed commandos on Sunday stormed the home of a Guinea Bissau politician, attacked his guards and made off with some three million euros and pieces of jewelry, police sources told AFP Monday.
The assailants broke in around 10 :00pm (2200 GMT) 9 to the home of the secretary of state in charge of transport and communications Joao Bernardo Vieira II, officials said.
Vieira was named after his uncle was named after his uncle, former president Joao Bernardo Vieira who was assassinated in 2009.
The minister, also spokesman for the ruling African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC), was not at his residence north of Bissau at the time of the break-in, the sources said.
The burglars took around three million euros ($3.2 million) and expensive jewelry belonging to Vieira s wife, who was at home but unharmed in the break-in.
Four of the Vieira s personal guards were seriously hurt and hospitalised.
It is unclear whether the money belonged to the secretary of state or to the ruling party.
Several radio stations reported on the break-in on Monday, also mentioning an assassination attempt against the politician. The ruling party and Vieira s entourage did not wish to comment on the break-in when contacted by AFP.
Guinea-Bissau, which has a heavy flow of unauthorised weapons, has been plagued by coups since independence from Portugal in 1974 and the instability has attracted South American drug cartels using the country as a transit point to Europe.
The country of 1.6 million says it has reintroduced the rule of law since electing Jose Mario Vaz last year in polls that were judged by the European Union as "free and credible".
