Mysterious Soldiers in Comoros

A band of mercenaries staged a predawn incursion in the Comoros off the coast of Mozambique on Wednesday, a defense official said. Government troops killed five of the attackers, he said.

The unidentified assailants numbered between 15 and 30, said Mahamout Soilih. They were hooded and apparently armed.

Troops managed to quell the incursion on Moheli island, he said. One government soldier was wounded, Soilih said.

“Five bodies have been brought to Moroni. They are mercenaries, and one could be a Romanian,” Soilih said by telephone from Moroni, the capital of the tiny Comoros archipelago in the Indian Ocean.

Phone lines to Moheli were cut, but diplomats in Comoros said official sources had told them the group arrived by speedboat in the early hours of the morning and took control of the local gendarmerie.

Comoros has seen a succession of military coups since its independence from France in 1975. There have been several coup attempts this year alone in the run-up to a referendum planned for Sunday to approve a new constitution aimed at ending a long-running secessionist crisis.

Diplomats said the soldiers had been distributing leaflets in English linking Comorian military strongman Assoumani Azzali with Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network. They said the gunmen seemed to speak French, however.

It was too early to be sure of the soldiers’ motives, diplomats said, but they added that the action could disrupt plans for Sunday’s referendum.

The OAU strongly supports the new constitution for the three islands of Comoros, which would reunite them after Anjouan seceded in 1997.