Guinea-Bissau's president, army chief killed

By Alberto Dabo

BISSAU (Reuters) - Soldiers killed Guinea-Bissau's President Joao Bernardo "Nino" Vieira on Monday in an apparent revenge attack for the slaying of the army chief of the unstable West African country.

Gunfire resounded in Bissau city in the early hours, subsiding at first light.

The armed forces said they were managing the crisis and would respect democratic institutions in the nation that has become a key transit point for drug smuggling.

"The death of Head of State Joao Bernardo Vieira is confirmed. His wife is at the Angolan embassy," Sandji Fati, a retired army colonel and close associate of the slain president, told Reuters in the former Portuguese colony's capital Bissau.

Portugal, the African Union, EU and United States condemned the killings and urged the restoration of order.

Fati said Vieira was shot dead in his home, having earlier refused to go with Angolan diplomats who took his wife to safety. Security sources and residents who live near the president's house confirmed Vieira had been killed there.

The country's 1.6 million people have endured years of instability since independence in 1974. This has been fuelled in recent years by the country's emergence as a key transit point in the smuggling of Latin American cocaine to Europe.

Vieira was a former military ruler who was ousted after a civil war in the 1990s and returned to power in a 2005 election.