20110719
Reuters
CONAKRY (Reuters) - Guinea's President Alpha Conde escaped a sustained rocket and gunfire attack by unknown assailants on his residence on Tuesday that left one person dead and his home riddled with bullet holes.

It was not clear who was behind the attack on Conde, who came to power last December in an election aimed at drawing a line under decades of coups in the West African nation whose iron and bauxite resources have attracted world mining majors.

"The president was there, but he is safe and sound," said the presidency source.

Eyewitnesses said the attack took place at Conde's personal residence in the Kipe suburb of the capital Conakry at around 1.30 a.m. local time and lasted over an hour. It was repelled by Conde's personal guard.

"The kitchen is covered in blood and part of the building is riddled with bullet holes," said one witness who declined to be identified, saying the main gate had been blown out with a rocket-launcher.

Soldiers erected roadblocks throughout the city after the attack, carrying out checks on all vehicles on the road. Army pick-up trucks full of soldiers patrolled the streets, but only a few residents ventured out of their homes.

Neither the presidential source nor a second source close to the presidency said they had any information at this stage on who the attackers were. There was no information on the identity of the person killed in the attack.

Conde came to power in the world's largest exporter of the aluminum ore bauxite last December after the first free election in the West African country since independence from France half a century ago.

The country had been ruled by a military junta since the death of longtime leader Lansana Conte in 2008.

IMPROVING ARMY DISCIPLINE

Guinea has a long history of authoritarian rule and its security forces have a reputation for brutality against dissidents as well as indiscipline.

However observers say there has been a marked improvement in army discipline since Conde came to power. He has put in place a new army leadership and appointed himself defence minister to try to drive security reform.

Former junta leader Moussa Dadis Camara, whose security forces killed more than 150 opposition demonstrators in a September 2009 attack, is in exile in Burkina Faso after being wounded in an assassination attempt.

A close former aide to Camara, Colonel Moussa Keita, was arrested on July 1 after he accused Sekouba Konate, the army official who engineered the transition back to civilian power, of having defrauded $22 million from the state.

The 2009 election was marked by ethnic tensions between rival groups linked to Conde and his main challenger Cellou Dalein Diallo, whose Peul ethnic group accounts for around 40 percent of the population.

While Diallo conceded defeat, political tensions have simmered, with Diallo's UFDG opposing Conde's plans to carry out an electoral census and revamp the voter roll before a parliamentary election Conde wants to hold by year-end.

The UFDG wants the census to be carried out by an independent electoral body rather than the government.