Real Ninjas fight off muggers in Sydney

SYDNEY - Three men who targeted a student in a dark Sydney alley got the fright of their lives when five martial art experts, wearing their traditional all black Ninja uniforms, pounced on them. The muggers had to run for the lives and the victim escaped with minor injuries.

The German medical student probably looked like an easy target as he sat alone on a late-night train. The three men told him to hand over his wallet, but he refused.

When he got off the train, they followed him on Bringelly Road, Kingswood, in Sydney’s west. As soon as he turned towards a dimly lit alley, the three men again accosted him.

They tripped him and then kicked him as he lay on the ground. The men grabbed his mobile phone and iPod, Sydney Morning Herald reported Thursday.

The assailants had no inkling that they were right in front of Ninja Senshi Ryu - western Sydney’s Ninja warrior school.

They also failed to notice Nathan Smith, a Ninja who was standing in the shadows outside the school. Smith alerted his teacher, Kaylan Soto, who has over 30 years’ Ninjutsu training.

Soto and three of his students, all clad in the Ninja’s traditional black uniform, ran out of the school towards the shocked attackers.

“We would have been just a silhouette,” Steve Ashley, a Ninja, was quoted as saying.

“It was probably the worst place in Sydney where they could have taken him.”

Soto said it took the three stunned men a few moments to comprehend what was going on. When they did, they took to their heels.

He said: “You should have seen their faces when they saw us in ninja gear coming towards them.”

The Ninjas chased the men, but they managed to escape.

The police said they have made arrests regarding the attack.

The medical student, who is here on an eight weeks exchange programme, was shaken but suffered only minor injuries.