Comoran president says Morocco helped end Anjouan revolt
DAMASCUS (AFP) — Comoran President Ahmed Abdallah Sambi revealed that his country received military aid from Morocco to help crush a rebellion on Anjouan, in his address at an Arab summit in Damascus on Saturday.
"It is no secret that we won because Morocco provided all it could in military aid," Sambi told delegates.
"My country came out of a difficult tunnel a few days ago when it regained control of the island of Anjouan, and we look to your sincere efforts to help us build a new phase in the Comoros islands," he said.
Mohamed Bacar, the 45-year-old renegade leader of Anjouan -- one of the Comoros Union's three islands -- was ousted on Tuesday in a joint military operation by government forces and African Union-mandated troops from Sudan and Tanzania.
Morocco, which is not a member of the AU, was not involved in the action but it has supplied arms to Moroni in the past, as has Libya. The Comoros asked its allies, including Arab states, to help fund the action.
Bacar managed to flee Anjouan and found refuge in Mayotte, which is the fourth island in the tiny Indian Ocean archipelago and opted to remain French when the rest of the Comoros acquired independence in 1975.
