Comoros president says rival's "days numbered"

MORONI, June 17 (Reuters) Comorian President Ahmed Abdullah Mohamed Sambi warned of military intervention to subdue a rebellious island and said his rival's hours as leader there were ''numbered''.

Anjouan, one of the coup-prone archipelago's three main islands, held local elections a week ago in defiance of Sambi's federal government and the African Union (AU), and on Thursday it inaugurated Mohamed Bacar as Anjouan's president.

''Bacar's hours are numbered,'' Sambi said yesterday in a radio address. ''I do not wish there to be bodies in Anjouan's streets. The intervention will be controlled to avoid maximum damage''.

The federal government has appealed to the AU to let about 300 AU soldiers and police -- already in Comoros to oversee polls on the other islands -- intervene militarily on Anjouan.

Sambi said Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade told him South Africa's Thabo Mbeki had agreed to call an AU ministerial meeting on Tuesday to discuss the crisis. He did not say where.

NO NEGOTIATION Armed force was an option reserved by his administration, Sambi said, adding the international community and friendly nations realised ''no negotiation is possible with Mohamed Bacar.'' The federal government postponed the local elections on Anjouan because of security concerns after Bacar's forces killed two federal soldiers in May, then police shot and wounded three civilians waiting for Sambi's plane to land there this month.

The runway was blocked and his aircraft forced to turn back.

Comoros's three main islands, whose total population is 670,000, retain autonomy via local presidencies and share a rotating national presidency. The archipelago has suffered 19 coups or attempted coups since independence in 1975.

First settled by Arab seafarers 1,000 years ago, the rocky islands became a haven for pirates pillaging ships across the Indian Ocean, until they were annexed by France in 1904.

REUTERS SW KN1652