It had all the trappings of a Frederick Forsyth thriller. A little before dawn, an amphibious invasion force of about 400 African conscripts swept on to the sandy beaches of the rebel-held tropical island of Anjouan.

Explosions and gunfire erupted as troops from the official Government of the archipelago nation of Comoros moved into the centre of the island and quickly secured the little-known capital, Mutsamudu, where most of the 300,000 dirt-poor residents of Anjouan live.

By early morning the renegade leader, Colonel Mohamed Bacar, a French-trained former gendarme who seized power in 2001, had disappeared, amid reports that he had fled the hilly, wooded island dressed as a woman.

“We have now taken the Anjouan capital,” Mohamed Dosra, the Defence Chief of Staff, said by telephone from the main island Grande Comore. There was no immediate word on casualties, although he admitted that “a small amount of resistance” had been met. The invasion, which had been expected for months, had the stamp of approval from the African Union (AU) and a nod and a wink from the United States, which has long worried about an al-Qaeda influence in the Islamic republic since it was courted by Iran and Libya.

With phone connections cut, there was no independent confirmation of what had really happened.

The Associated Press news agency, which has a reporter on the island, said that the sea port was under the control of AU troops from Tanzania and Sudan, who were supporting the Comoros government force.

However, it said that only a mile outside the capital about a dozen heavily armed men, describing themselves as loyalists, were waiting to attack. During the afternoon, gunshots were also heard in Matsamudu, although cheering crowds were also reported to be welcoming AU soldiers who strolled through the streets.

Speaking from the neighbouring and loyalist island of Mohéli, from which the invasion was launched, Major Ahmed Sidi told reporters:

“Anjouan island is under total control of the army. So far we have no dead or wounded to lament. The rebel chiefs have all run away.” A government spokesman said that Colonel Bacar was trying to flee by boat to the nearby French-run island of Mayotte, which opted to stay part of France when the other three islands in the archipelago gained independence in 1975 and is still policed by gendarmes in tight shorts and kepi hats.

President Bacar stands accused of seeking independence for Anjouan, which previously tried to break away in 1997, but maintained that he was fighting only for autonomy. He has accused the central Government of pocketing all the revenue from the island’s main port.

The AU, whose member states are terrified of secessionist movements, deemed his “re-election” last June, in a poll not endorsed by the Federal Government, to be illegal. It then backed the central Government’s calls for support for military action at a recent summit, which ignored big problems elsewhere on the continent, such as Darfur, where a joint AU-UN force has still to be deployed five years after the start of the conflict there.

The Comoros chain has a population of 750,000. Since independence the spice and perfume-producing islands have undergone a series of coups and political upheavals. They were first settled 1,000 years ago by Arab seafarers who brought with them a relaxed form of Islam. They gained notoriety after the French mercenary Bob Denard, who married one of the archipelago’s beautiful women, ruled the islands for much of the 1980s after he led a coup in 1978 on behalf of Ahmed Abdallah, the figurehead President.

A statement issued by Ahmed Abdallah Mohamed Sambi the current Comoros President, said that he was committed to holding new elections on Anjouan as soon as possible.

Helping hand

— The African Union (AU) was founded in 2002. Its focus is “peace, security and stability”

— Its first military intervention was in Burundi in 2003, when 3,500 South African, Mozambican and Ethiopian troops policed a ceasefire between Hutus and Tutsis after a decade-long conflict

— Almost 40 AU soldiers from a force of 7,000 in Darfur have died in the operation to monitor a supposed truce

— After Ethiopian forces pushed back Somalian Islamists in Mogadishu in 2006, an AU force was mandated to bolster peace; 8,000 troops were promised but only 2,200 have arrived

Sources: African Union, South African Institute for Strategic Studies, agencies

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