Soldiers assassinate Guinea-Bissau president

Soldiers killed Guinea-Bissau's President Joao Bernardo "Nino" Vieira today in an apparent revenge attack for the murder of the army chief of the unstable West African country.

Gunfire resounded in Bissau city in the early hours, subsiding at first light.

The armed forces said they were managing the crisis and would respect democratic institutions in the nation that has become a key transit point for drug smuggling.

"The death of Head of State Joao Bernardo Vieira is confirmed. His wife is at the Angolan embassy," Sandji Fati, a retired army colonel and close associate of the slain president, told Reuters in the former Portuguese colony's capital Bissau.

Portugal, the African Union, EU and United States condemned the killings and urged the restoration of order.

Fati said Vieira was shot dead in his home, having earlier refused to go with Angolan diplomats who took his wife to safety. Security sources and residents who live near the president's house confirmed Vieira had been killed there.

The country's 1.6 million people have endured years of instability since independence in 1974. This has been fuelled in recent years by the country's emergence as a key transit point in the smuggling of Latin American cocaine to Europe.

Vieira was a former military ruler who was ousted after a civil war in the 1990s and returned to power in a 2005 election.

He had been at odds with armed forces chief of staff General Batista Tagme Na Wai, who was killed in an attack on Sunday evening that also destroyed part of the military headquarters.

A security source said soldiers from Na Wai's Balante ethnic group led the attack on Vieira, who is from the smaller Papel community, and looted his home afterwards.

"Tagme always said that his and the president's fate were linked and if he died, so would the president," the source said.

The AU called the killings "cowardly and heinous attacks".

Portugal offered to help to restore constitutional rule and called a meeting of the community of Portuguese-speaking countries in Lisbon today to discuss the situation.

"We have been in direct contact throughout the night with the prime minister of Guinea-Bissau precisely to guarantee that the process does not slide into a situation of generalised conflict," Foreign Minister Luis Amado said on SIC television.

Tensions are rife within Bissau's political establishment and security forces after a series of attacks on leaders.

In January, the armed forces command said militiamen hired to protect Vieira had shot at Na Wai. The militia denied the shooting had been an assassination attempt but the miltiary nevertheless ordered the militia be disbanded.

The 400-strong force had been recruited as Vieira's personal bodyguard by the Interior Ministry after the president's house was targeted by heavy weapons late last year.

A policeman said soldiers loyal to Na Wai had freed people accused of that attack ahead of the president's death today.

According to the constitution, if the president dies, the speaker of parliament runs the country until new elections.

Following a bloody independence war, Guinea-Bissau's military has long been involved in politics. The military issued a statement on Monday saying that the situation was under control but it would respect democratic institutions.

"A commission of military chiefs has been set up manage the crisis," the statement said, without saying if they were referring to political, as well as military matters.

Analysts say political instability has been exacerbated in the past few years as Latin American drugs gangs have taken advantage of Guinea-Bissau's poorly policed coastline and remote airstrips to smuggle cocaine through Africa to Europe.

They say well-resourced drug cartels with access to weapons, speedboats and planes have been able to secure cooperation from senior officials in the armed forces and government in one of the world's poorest countries, whose main export is cashew nuts.