Fiji Army battling rebels at military barracks, two dead

4:00 PM

SUVA - The Fiji army have launched an attempt to regain control of the main barracks in Suva after members of Fiji's special forces, who backed a May coup, started a gunbattle with regular army units.

State-owned Radio Fiji reported that two soldiers had been killed in the battle.

Initial reports said eight soldiers had been wounded and taken to hospital, but Radio Fiji put the number injured at nine or ten.

"The army has launched a counterattack," a local FM96 radio reporter said, adding more than 60 soldiers loyal to Fiji's military commander Frank Bainimarama had fought their way into the barracks.

"They went in from all angles. There was shooting everywhere," the reporter said from outside the barracks, which is nestled in Nabua - a residential hilltop suburb of the capital Suva.

The radio station reported special forces soldiers had taken some officers hostage.

"I have a gun to my head," one of the hostages said in a telephone interview with FM96 radio.

The initial shooting broke out about 1 pm (2 pm NZ time) and local residents heard two explosions, said local media.

The Australian embassy in Suva told Reuters it believed the shooting was an attempt to oust Fiji's military commander.

"From what we have been told, the shooting is part of an attempt by the CRW to oust commander Frank Bainimarama from the barracks," said embassy spokesman Dennis Rounds.

However, Bainimarama fled the barracks through dense bushland about two hours after the shooting started, an FM96 radio reporter who saw Bainimarama escape, surrounded by 12 bodyguards with M16 rifles, said.

Earlier, some 20 to 30 army officers were seen running from their headquarters to their residence, where they were barricading themselves inside.

Guards in front of the barracks were seen running around trying to find out what was happening.

The military had been on local radio confirming the shooting, said Round.

FM96 said roads leading to the barracks, which is situated among homes above Suva's central business district, had been sealed off.

The CRW unit was linked with a coup that rocked Fiji in May when nationalist gunmen stormed parliament in the name of indigenous Fijian rights and ousted the country's first ethnic Indian Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry.

The military has since installed an interim government and coup leader George Speight is in jail on treason charges awaiting trial.

- REUTERS