Comoros Helicopters Drop Leaflets on Rebel Island

`The African Union forces are at sea but have not yet assaulted Anjouan,` the source told Reuters.

Comoros used helicopters on Monday to drop leaflets on rebel Anjouan island, warning a military assault was imminent and telling locals to stay at home, a source close to the military said.

Backed by the African Union (AU), the national government of the coup-prone Indian Ocean archipelago has for weeks been threatening to land on tiny Anjouan and topple its local leader, Mohamed Bacar, who clung to power in an illegal election last year.

"The African Union forces are at sea but have not yet assaulted Anjouan," the source told Reuters.

He cited leaflets dropped on the island and signed by the national army reading: "The population is called upon to stay away from the coastal zones ... It (the army) will use all the firepower it possesses."

Also on Monday, all air and sea links were cut to Anjouan and nearby Moheli island, where national Comoros and AU troops have gathered, said Mohamed Bacar Dossar, director of the president's cabinet in charge of defence.

"Preparations are well underway," he told Reuters by phone.

Some 1,350 AU troops from Tanzania and Sudan are in Comoros to support the assault.

"The 750 Tanzanians and the 600 Sudanese have all arrived," said Lieutenant Colonel Normal Mze, a military assistant. A Senegalese contingent was also due.

National President Ahmed Abdallah Mohamed Sambi was due to talk to the nation by television at 2100 hours local time (1800 GMT).

Sambi has plenty of support at home and in the AU for an operation against the hilly, tropical island held by Bacar and his militia.

But despite general backing around the region, continental heavyweight South Africa has expressed reservations about an assault on Anjouan, saying dialogue would be preferable.

And the party of Comoros' former national president Colonel Azali Assoumani also questioned the wisdom of an attack.

"The use of any force.. would attract the attention of the population of both Comoros and the international community to the groundless character of a fratricidal war whose motives are not convincing," it said in a written statement.

The central government accuses Bacar of secessionist aspirations, but the former French-trained gendarme says he wants more autonomy for Anjouan rather than independence.

Analysts say the African Union may be hoping to score a relatively easy victory against Anjouan to earn some much-needed international prestige to offset the failures of its struggling peacekeeping missions in Sudan and Somalia.

After suffering some 20 coups or coup attempts since independence from France in 1975, Comoros is trying to shrug off a history of instability and inter-island bickering.

Anjouan is home to about 300,000 of the three-island archipelago's total population of 700,000.

Lying off Africa's east coast, the islands -- which grow vanilla, cloves and ylang-ylang, a flower whose oils are used in aromatherapy -- were first settled by Arab seafarers 1,000 years ago, then later became a pirate haven.