Troops regain control of rebel Comoros island

The self-styled president of a breakaway island in the Indian Ocean has been forced from power following a successful invasion backed by France.

Mohamed Bacar, who seized power on Anjouan island in a 2001 coup and held his own flawed elections last year, was threatening to break away from the three-island Union of the Comoros.

However, hundreds of Comoran government and African Union soldiers have launched a seaborne raid at dawn to topple him.

Witnesses said that Mr Bacar's forces, thought to number less than 400, raised barely any resistance to the boatloads of troops.

The French-trained former gendarme had fled his presidential palace and reportedly tried to slip away from Anjouan dressed as a woman in a dugout canoe.