Soldiers detain leader, dissolve government

CONAKRY, GUINEA >> Mutinous soldiers in the West African nation of Guinea detained President Alpha Conde on Sunday after hours of heavy gunfire rang out near the presidential palace in the capital, then announced on state television that the government had been dissolved in an apparent coup d’etat.

The country’s borders were closed and its constitution was declared invalid in the announcement read aloud on state television by army Col. Mamadi Doumbouya, who told Guineans: “The duty of a soldier is to save the country.”

“We will no longer entrust politics to one man. We will entrust it to the people,” said Doumbouya, draped in a Guinean flag with about a half dozen other soldiers flanked at his side.

It was not immediately known, though, how much support Doumbouya had within the military or whether other soldiers loyal to the president of more than a decade might attempt to wrest back control.