Two people have been detained in connection with the killing of a security guard from the US embassy in Nepal's capital Kathmandu, police said today.
"We have detained two people in connection with the investigation," one police official, who asked not to be identified, said. The official declined to give further details.
Two unidentified gunmen killed Ramesh Manandhar, a security guard with the American embassy in the Nepali capital yesterday. He was killed near the compound of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), about eight kilometres away from the US embassy.
The State Department has warned US citizens living in the Himalayan kingdom to be on guard.
Nepal has been racked by Maoist insurgency and last month King Gyanendra declared a state of emergency after the rebels attacked police and army posts across the country.
English daily Kathmandu Post, quoting witnesses, said the killers claimed they were Maoists and warned people nearby not to chase them.
The newspaper said the assailants had fired three shots at the 28-year-old guard and took away his identity card issued by the embassy.
The daily quoted an unnamed investigating official as saying the bullets used in the attack showed they were fired from a Chinese pistol looted earlier from the police by the Maoists rebels.
Maoist rebels, who are fighting to install a one-party communist republic in the kingdom, broke a four-month-old truce in November and killed dozens of soldiers and police.
Last month they also bombed a Coca-Cola plant in Kathmandu.