Bangui - Presidential guards in the Central African Republic quelled a coup attempt yesterday, leaving "many dead" following an attack by mutinous soldiers on the home of President Ange-Felix Patasse, his spokesman said.
Several hours of fighting with heavy weapons and mortars ended in retreat by the rebels, who were still being pursued by joint units of the presidential guard, Central African armed forces and the gendarmerie, the president's office said.
"The president is safe and sound," Mr Patasse's spokesman Mr Prosper Ndouba said, adding that seven presidential guards were killed and there were "many deaths among the attackers".
A government statement said loyal troops were in control, blaming the assault on "individuals who have yet to be identified".
It added: "The national army has fought off the attacks and currently controls the whole situation."
In another development, Mr Alfred Poloko Tainga, Mr Patasse's political adviser who was sacked, then arrested, last week, "disappeared" from police custody in Bangui, according to a gendarme who requested anonymity.
He would not say whether Mr Poloko had escaped, had been transferred in view of the coup bid, or had been released.
Mr Poloko's wife said she had not heard from him since Sunday, when he said he feared for his safety and claimed his home had been searched.
Between 40 and 100 men attacked Mr Patasse's residence at around 2:30 a.m., a French embassy official said. Rebels also attacked the state radio station, which was off the air throughout the day, depriving Bangui's 600,000 residents of official information about the attempted coup.
Witnesses said those who attacked the president's residence were members of the Central African Armed Forces (FACA), operating in isolated units with automatic weapons.
Residents said mutineers regrouped in the south of Bangui, a stronghold of the opposition, and were commandeering private vehicles.
An officer in the CAR army, who asked not to be named, said those behind the attack had freed a jailed general close to former military ruler Mr Andre Kolingba, who ceded to Patasse after 1993 elections in the impoverished country.
The officer blamed the attacks on troops who already mutinied three times in 1996 and 1997, in bloody uprisings, triggered by pay demands, which were put down with French military help.
Rebel activity in southern Bangui, where former mutineers had deployed and pulled out concealed weapons, had caused hundreds of people, mostly women and children, to flee for fear of an attack by loyalist troops, witnesses said.
After the gunfire eased off, people began to venture out of their houses, taking care not to go near major roads, such as David Dacko Avenue, which leads from the south to the city centre.
The general said to have been freed overnight, Lucien Ndjengbot, had been serving a 10-year sentence after his conviction in 1994 for homicide during a riot in 1992, the army source added.
Ndjengbot was close to General Kolingba, who has consistently denied allegations by authorities here that he had a hand in the mutinies of 1996 and 1997.
Mr Patasse has in the past year faced mounting opposition protests against his rule and a series of strikes.