Former military leader Gen Denis Sassou-Nguesso's camp proclaimed victory in the battle for the Congo Republic capital, Brazzaville, yesterday. Gen Sassou's forces said they also controlled the centre of the oil town, Pointe-Noire.
A diplomat in Pointe-Noire said that pro-Sassou Angolan troops with tanks had entered the former French colony's Atlantic port city after dawn, and foreign residents there reported looting.
"We have total control of the city of Brazzaville," a Sassou spokesman, Mr Isidore Mvouba, said in Kinshasa. This is an important step in the fight to wrest control from the elected President, former scientist Mr Pascal Lissouba (65). Mr Lissouba's whereabouts were not clear last night.
The Congo Prime Minister, Mr Bernard Kolelas, and some of his ministers were reported to have fled to Kinshasa, the capital of the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo.
The war in Congo Republic began in June, when forces loyal to President Lissouba surrounded the home of the political rival and former president, Gen Sassou-Nguesso. In recent weeks the fighting increased in intensity, with Gen Sassou fighting back, apparently with Angola's help.
The top Lissouba commander in Pointe-Noire conceded defeat last night, saying he had ordered his men to surrender. "I have told my men to lay down their arms. We do not want a blood-bath. We want to save this town," he said, adding that his men lacked the means to defend themselves against the Angolans.
France said its forces had been placed on evacuation standby following reports of looting in Pointe-Noire, which is home to 1,600 foreign nationals, most of them French. Congo is an important oil-producer, but most of its resources are offshore.
Brazzaville itself was fairly calm after days of fierce fighting. The capital has been almost totally deserted by its 800,000 civilian population, who have fled the ethnic and political fighting which has killed several thousand residents.
Gen Sassou's Cobra militia gained the upper hand in Brazzaville on Tuesday, capturing Mr Lissouba's presidential palace. Earlier they took the airport, which Lissouba loyalists had held for the four-month power struggle.
In New York, the United Nations Secretary-General, Mr Kofi Annan, asked the Security Council on Tuesday night to impose sanctions on the country and to prepare to send a peacekeeping force there.
But less than 24 hours later his spokesman said events had short-circuited the plan. "The situation on the ground today does not look promising as far as a peacekeeping mission goes," U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said, adding, however, that any decision was up to the Security Council which would receive a report from Mr Annan soon. Asked if there was something a peacekeeping force could now do, Eckhard said: "No, clearly not. We are talking about a conflict that in just the last hours has shifted in favour of one of the factions."