Kingston: Jamaica declared a state of emergency in two parishes of its capital Kingston on Sunday after shooting and firebomb attacks on police stations by suspected supporters of an alleged drug lord who faces extradition to the United States.
"A state of public emergency, limited to the parishes of Kingston and St. Andrew, has been declared and will come into effect at 6:00 pm (2300 GMT) today," the government's Jamaica Information Service (JIS) said.
The limited emergency in the popular Caribbean tourist destination covered districts of the capital where gunmen on Sunday fired on two police stations and set fire to another. At least one policemen was injured.
The attackers were suspected supporters of Christopher "Dudus" Coke whom the government has called on to surrender to face a US extradition request on cocaine trafficking and gun-running charges.
Streets into the poor Tivoli Gardens area of West Kingston, where Coke is believed to be hiding, were barricaded on Sunday in defiance of a police call for Coke to hand himself over, witnesses said.
The U.S. Department of State has issued a travel alert warning its citizens of the possibility of violence in Jamaica's Kingston Metropolitan area.
Tensions in Jamaica rose over the last week after Prime Minister Bruce Golding announced he was starting proceedings to extradite Coke. U.S. prosecutors describe Coke as the leader of the infamous "Shower Posse" that murdered hundreds of people during the cocaine wars of the 1980s.
Relations between Jamaica and the United States grew strained when Jamaica initially spurned a 2009 extradition request for Coke, who is a supporter of the ruling Jamaica Labour Party and wields influence in the volatile inner city constituency that Golding represents.
