CONFLICT between rival biker gangs escalated yesterday when an anti tank rocket attack on a Hell's Angel club left two dead and 19 wounded.
As police launched investigations to track down the attackers experts warned that the battle which has raged across Scandinavia for more than two years risked turning into open warfare.
Eight people have been killed since February 1994, and almost 60 wounded in the conflict mainly for control of the lucrative drug market.
The battle has seen a range of sophisticated weapons used, from machine guns to rockets, since the Bandidos decided to take on the bigger Hell's Angels when they burst on to the Denmark scene in 1993.
The club was targeted before dawn when the missile was fired from a building 300 metres away, police said.
Around 150 Hell's Angels from Denmark and Sweden had gathered at the Copenhagen club for an annual festival, the "Viking Party".
The dead men were both Danes - Mr Janne Kroehn (29) and Mr Louis Linde-Nielsen (38) - as were the wounded, except for one Norwegian. Police warned that the toll could rise, since one of three seriously injured in the attack was only hanging on to life.
The deputy police director, Mr Henning Thiesen, warned that further revenge attacks could follow.
"If the Rockers have decided to kill each other, we can't stop them," Mr Thiesen said.
"It was mad on the Hell's Angels' part, given the current tension with violent clashes with the Bandidos since the spring, to organise such a large party. It was a hit suicidal."
A criminologist, Joi Bay, said the "war of the Rockers, as we call it in Denmark, is a question of courage and honour. It is fundamental to the bikers' world that if you are attacked you seek revenge along the principle of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth."
There are 120 clubs with 1,000 members.