A group of disaffected soldiers launched a foiled coup bid in The Gambia on Tuesday while the president was abroad, military and diplomatic sources said. Forces loyal to President Yahha Jammeh, who has ruled the small west African nation for 20 years, killed three suspects including the alleged ringleader - an army deserter, a military officer said. The officer, speaking to AFP from Bissau, said the deserter named as Lamin Sanneh led a heavily-armed attack with another six men on the presidential palace in the capital Banjul.
The pre-dawn assault triggered panic in the tropical city, while national radio went off air for several hours and state television was suspended. Jammeh's precise whereabouts remained unclear. Gambian officials said the president was on a private visit to Dubai and foreign diplomats said he was in France, but an official in Paris said there was no sign he was in the country.
Opposition politician Sheikh Sidya Bayo told a private Senegalese radio station that the unrest was "the start of a mutiny that changed" into a bid to topple Jammeh. Three of the suspected coup plotters were killed and another captured by Jammeh's forces, but there was no confirmation of an overall death toll from the fighting.
Comments
Comments are closed.