Comoros soldiers seize rebel capital

[David]

AP


ANJOUAN, Comoros - The Comoros army seized the capital of this rebel-held island Tuesday, but sporadic fighting persisted as troops flushed out pockets of resistance and searched for the renegade colonel who hoped to make Anjouan independent.

Explosions and gunfire started before dawn as hundreds of soldiers backed by an African Union force moved into the town of Mutsamudu against forces led by Col. Mohamed Bacar.

Crowds of jubilant residents poured into the streets to cheer the invaders, chanting "Bacar is a dog!" and "We have won!"

There was no official word on casualties. An Associated Press reporter saw an elderly man being carried after he apparently was hit in the hip with a stray bullet. Two African Union soldiers also appeared to suffer minor injuries.

"We have now taken the Anjouan capital," Defense Chief of Staff Mohamed Dosara said by telephone from the main island of Grand Comore. "We have met a small amount of resistance." He said troops were searching for Bacar.

The Comoros — an archipelago of three main islands 250 miles off Africa's southeastern coast with a population of about 750,000 — has experienced a series of coups and political upheavals since independence from France in 1975. The late Bob Denard, a notorious French mercenary, controlled the Comoros behind a figurehead leader for most of the 1980s after a coup he led.

Bacar, who seized control of Anjouan in 2001 and stayed in power after an illegal election last year, had drawn increasingly strident warnings from the central government and the African Union.

President Ahmed Abdallah Sambi said he ordered the invasion. Each of the three main islands of Comoros has a regional president under Sambi, the country's main leader based in Moroni, Grand Comore.

About a dozen armed men who identified themselves as Bacar loyalists appeared in control just over a mile outside Mutsamudu. Inside the capital, gunshots rang out through the afternoon but the cheering crowds were able to walk through the streets.

Troops raided an old military garrison — believed to be a headquarters for Bacar loyalists — and emptied it of a cache of weapons, including assault rifles, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades.

Mohamed Kassim Adong, a resident of the coastal town of Domoni, said he saw soldiers going house-to-house conducting searches.

Several hundred soldiers landed from four ships in the first invasion wave. An additional 100 Comoros troops came ashore later with six pickup trucks mounted with machine guns.

About 450 Comoros soldiers were the spearhead of the military operation, supported by some 780 troops from Tanzania and 400 from Sudan, said Pascale Andreani, a spokeswoman for the French Foreign Ministry. France says its interest in its former colony is confined to backing the African Union and ensuring the territorial integrity of the Comoros.

South African President Thabo Mbeki criticized the assault, calling it "unfortunate." He said Bacar had written to his government with a pledge to hold elections in two months.

Officials at African Union headquarters in Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa, refused to comment.