MUTSAMUDU (Comoros), March 25: A coalition of Comoran and African Union troops on Tuesday invaded the rebel island of Anjouan and hunted down its renegade leader, exchanging fire with his supporters along the way.
Hours after the pre-dawn operation was launched, the 1,400 federal troops backed by Tanzanian and Sudanese soldiers had made swift progress and located Mohamed Bacar but encountered pockets of resistance, military officials said.
The coalition staged its long-awaited landing in Anjouan’s capital and main port of Mutsamudu, where they were greeted by cheering residents, a correspondent there reported.
Bacar’s re-election last year as president of Anjouan — one of three islands forming the Indian Ocean federation — has never been recognised by the international community and he has faced warnings of an invasion ever since.
Coalition forces “are deploying on the island... but you cannot secure control of the whole island in three hours,” Defence Minister Mohamed Bacar Dossar said in Moroni, the Comoros federal capital.
The forces are “trying to flush out a pocket near (Bacar’s) residence in Barakani,” the minister said.
An AFP reporter in Anjouan saw Bacar loyalists — with red ribbons, the colour of the Anjouan flag, knotted around the barrels of their assault rifles — near Bacar’s residence.
Kalashnikov shots were heard on the outskirts of Mutsamudu, as Bacar’s forces — believed to number barely 400 — appeared to concentrate their effort on a handful of key locations, having offered no resistance when the coalition ships docked in Mutsamudu.
On the outskirts of Mutsamudu, coalition troops moved towards an Anjouan police compound and fuel depot, engaging in brief exchanges of fire with Bacar loyalists.
A correspondent saw one wounded woman being brought into Mutsamudu for treatment. One man was also injured when coalition forces fired on a house believed to shelter Bacar allies.A spokesman for the Comoran army, Ahmed Sidi, said that Bacar had been located but did not elaborate.
Bacar’s Dar el Najah presidential palace on the heights of Ouani, near Mutsamudu, was deserted, a newsman reported. Sentry posts were empty, the building’s doors wide open and undefended.
“Mohamed Bacar has not used all his forces and equipment yet. He’s a clever poker player,” warned Aboubekr Chahassou, one of Bacar’s former allies now loyal to the federal government.
Comoros President Ahmed Abdallah Mohamed Sambi announced in a national televised address on Monday that he had approved the long-threatened operation to reunify the three-island archipelago.
“I have ordered the Comoran army and the forces of our country’s friends to bring Anjouan back under the rule of law and free her citizens,” Sambi said, adding that he did so “without joy, like swallowing a bitter pill.” “The latest attempt... to bring them back to reason failed like the others,” he said, in reference to months of mediation by the African Union.
Since winning independence from France in 1975, the Comoros — an impoverished archipelago home to around 700,000 inhabitants — have never known constitutional stability and have faced 19 coups or coup attempts.
Each of the three islands in the federation has its own leader, under a federal president.
Bacar, 45, was elected president of Anjouan in 2002. He was re-elected in June 2007 in a poll that was declared illegal by Sambi’s federal government and was never recognised by the African Union.
He has run the territory as a breakaway province ever since.
Bacar took a defiant stand in an interview on Thursday.
“I am still determined to defend Anjouan despite my concern that people are ready to come here and fire on the Anjouanese. But I am continuing with my preparations to defend Anjouan,” he said.
In addition to the African Union, France, the country’s former colonial power, has also given the operation to oust Bacar its blessing, and helped airlift the AU troops to the area.—AFP
MUTSAMUDU (Comoros), March 25: A coalition of Comoran and African Union troops on Tuesday invaded the rebel island of Anjouan and hunted down its renegade leader, exchanging fire with his supporters along the way.
An AFP reporter in Anjouan saw Bacar loyalists — with red ribbons, the colour of the Anjouan flag, knotted around the barrels of their assault rifles — near Bacar’s residence.
