FILE as attempted coup reported

(28 Mar 2004)

Kinshasa, 23 January 2001
1. Dignitaries walking up steps to the People''s Palace
2. Soldiers standing at attention
3. Joseph Kabila walking up to coffin and laying wreath
4. Coffin being opened
5. Joseph Kabila and dignitaries standing and watching ceremony as Kabila Senior''s widow walks past
6. Joseph Kabila
7. Soldier crying
8. Soldiers and crowd
9. Soldier with gun in foreground of other soldiers standing in a line

FILE: USA, 9 December 1986
10. Mobutu Sese Seko meeting former US President Ronald Reagan

FILE: USA, 29-30 June 1989
11. Mobutu meeting International Monetary officials

FILE: Kinshasa, 17 December 1996
12. Mobutu''s plane arriving
13. Mobutu and his wife walking through crowds

STORYLINE:

Government forces battled attackers at military installations and a TV station in Congo''s capital on Sunday in what diplomats called a coup attempt against President Joseph Kabila.

The government said the situation was under control.

Fighters loyal to the late Congo dictator Mobutu Sese Seko were among those behind the attempt, British Ambassador Jim Atkinson told The Associated Press.

The coup attempt woke Congo''s capital before dawn, leading to four hours of gunfire.

By late morning, shooting had eased, with attackers apparently contained by loyalist troops.

Congo government spokesman Vital Kamerhe said the gunmen attacked simultaneously at several military posts and a private television station, killing one loyalist soldier and wounding two others.

Diplomats believed the attempt was at least in part the work of soldiers loyal to Mobutu, Congo''s Cold War ruler.

Thousands of Mobutu''s soldiers fled across the Congo River to Brazzaville, capital of neighbouring Republic of Congo, after Mobutu was ousted in 1997.

Shooting was heard around Kinshasa''s Congo River port, directly across from Brazzaville.

A Congo army officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said some of the attackers had come from Brazzaville overnight, passing by a security post where Congolese soldiers were sleeping while on duty.

The officer spoke in front of an office building downtown that was surrounded by about 100 soldiers. Security forces believed some of the attackers were inside, the officer said.

The building was near the U.S. Embassy and the headquarters of the U.N. mission in Congo. Residents said shooting had been heavy in the area during the fighting.

By late morning, with fighting subsiding elsewhere, a standoff appeared to be continuing between the attackers and loyalists in one part of the city, Atkinson said.

Congo, Africa''s third-largest country, is emerging from five years of war that killed more than 3 million people by some aid groups'' estimate.

Kabila heads a power-sharing government under peace deals that ended the fighting. Kabila has been in power since January 2001, when bodyguards assassinated then-ruler Laurent Kabila, Joseph''s father.

Kabila was in the country, although his exact whereabouts on Sunday were not immediately known but he was reported to be safe.

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