Mercenary Leads Coup in Comoros Off African Coast

A French mercenary who once was the armed power behind the presidency of the Comoros led a new coup attempt Thursday in the impoverished island nation, taking the president hostage.

Bob Denard, 66, led a group of foreign mercenaries that attacked the presidential palace and captured President Said Mohamed Djohar, officials at the Comoros Embassy in Paris said.

As of late Thursday, the mercenaries controlled the main army compound on the islands off Africa’s east coast, the Comoros Embassy’s charge d’affaires said.

Communications with the islands were spotty. Automatic-weapons fire and mortar fire were reported around the presidential palace in Moroni, the capital, and several civilians were reported killed.

Mortar shells fired late Thursday by Denard’s group struck close to Comoros’ national radio station, French media reported.

France “firmly condemned” the coup and said Thursday that it had put its armed forces in the Indian Ocean on alert.

The Comoros have been politically unstable since gaining independence from France in 1975. The United Nations lists the Comoros, with 500,000 residents, as one of the world’s poorest countries.

Djohar was elected president of Comoros in March, 1990. Dissidents depict him as dictatorial and corrupt.

Denard, who staged an earlier coup in 1978, effectively ruled the Comoros for more than a decade until he was driven out by French troops in 1989.