July 29 (Reuters) - Minnesota has called in the National Guard after the city of St. Paul was slammed by what its mayor described as a "deliberate, coordinated, digital attack" carried out by sophisticated hackers.

The office of Governor Tim Walz said in a statement that he was deploying the Guard, which has a cyber protection component, because the attack had "exceeded the city's response capacity."

In a press conference earlier on Tuesday, St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter said the city had "initiated a full shut down of our information systems as a defensive measure to contain the threat," triggering WiFi outages across city buildings, disruptions to city libraries, and suspension of network resources.