MUBARAK SURVIVES ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT

"Suddenly I found a blue van blocking the road, and somebody jumped on the ground and a machine-gun started, and I realized there were bullets coming at our car." Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak described the moment when gunmen opened fire on his motorcade this morning as he arrived in Ethiopa for a summit of African heads of state. The 67-year-old Mubarak, who was unharmed, immediately returned to Cairo. The murder attempt in Addis Ababa had been carefully choreographed: two vehicles pulled into the motorcade; seven gunmen (five inside the vehicles and two atop a nearby building) fired, hitting Mubarak's black armored Mercedes-Benz limousine. "I wasn't afraid at all because it was an armored car," the President said later. "The car windows were hit by one of the bullets, which almost went through." Several assailants were killed in a heavy exchange of gunfire with Ethiopian and Egyptian security forces; one survivor is reportedly under interrogation. A man claiming to represent the Muslim fundamentalist Vanguards of Conquest group lauded today's assassination attempt: "We welcome the attack on Mubarak," the man said in Arabic. "We will finish him the next time."