BANJUL, Jan 17 (Reuters) -
Gambia's interior minister went on
state radio on Monday to calm
panic caused by a shootout in
which television said a soldier was
killed, as authorities rounded up
soldiers suspected of a weekend
coup plot.
State television said a soldier
suspected of involvement in a coup
plot, Corporal Momadou Dumbya,
had been shot dead in a shootout
in the Albert Market, near President
Yahya Jammeh's headquarters.
Another soldier was killed in a
shootout on Saturday.
Shops and offices in Banjul closed
as rumours of a fresh coup attempt
spread through the capital on
Monday.
Interior Minister Ousman Badjie,
speaking on state radio, said the
rumours false.
"I would like to reassure the general
public that there is no iota of truth
(in the rumours of a coup), and the
situation is under control," Badjie
said.
Earlier he told reporters security
forces investigating an attempted
coup which ended in a weekend
shootout had made more arrests.
He did not say how many.
Colonel Landing Sanneh,
commander of the State Guard,
was wounded while resisting arrest
on Saturday and an officer under
his command was killed.
Badjie said the government had
concrete evidence that Sanneh and
Lieutenant Almamo Manneh, the
officer killed in Saturday's shootout,
wanted to overthrow the
government.
The ministry said on Saturday that
several months of investigations
had uncovered the plot, in which
the officer, Lieutenant Almamo
Manneh, was to take control of the
Fajara and Yundum barracks and
mobilise support for their action.
Jammeh seized power as a junior
army officer in 1994, and won the
presidency in multi-party elections
in 1996. Gambia, a former British
colony of just over 1.2 million
people, has armed forces
numbering fewer than 1,000 men.
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