Comoros invasion 'repelled'
Comoros has suffered instability since independence
Armed men who had attacked the Comoros island of Moheli have been defeated, says the government. "The army has liberated the infiltrated zone," Communications Minister Ali Toihir said on national radio.
At least five people were killed in the fighting, reports the French news agency AFP.
Some reports said the men who landed on Moheli on Wednesday morning claimed to be part of the United States army fighting terrorism but other reports say they spoke French "without an accent".
A US embassy spokesman in Nairobi has denied that US forces were involved.
The government on the main island of Grande Comore responded by flying around 30 soldiers to Moheli, while more were on their way by boat said AFP, quoting a government source.
Still going
A delegation from the Southern African Development Community has said that it will continue with a planned visit to the main island of Grande Comore on Wednesday, despite the unrest.
The delegation is headed by South African Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and is due to observe a constitutional referendum, scheduled for 23 December.
For me, the Comoros page has been turned Bob Denard French mercenary The BBC's Southern Africa correspondent, Barnaby Phillips, says the referendum is expected to approve a new constitution, designed to end recent political instability.
The special envoy of the organisation of African unity in Comoros, Francisco Madeira told the BBC that he feared the attack was an attempt to disrupt next week's referendum.
Those killed were two civilians and three of the armed men, reports AFP.
Continued instability Diplomats said the raiders had been distributing leaflets linking Comoran military strongman Colonel Azaly Assoumani with Osama Bin Laden's al-Qaeda network.
Assoumani denies any links to Bin Laden Comoros, with an overwhelmingly Muslim population, has experienced more than 20 coups since independence from France in 1975, several of them involving French mercenaries, such as the notorious Bob Denard.
On Wednesday, Mr Denard told AFP that he had nothing to do with the attack, which he described as "more bizarre than usual" . "For me, the Comoros page has been turned," he said.
One of the archipelago's three islands, Anjouan, declared independence from the Comoros Federation in 1997.
This triggered a new round of unrest on the islands. Colonel Assoumani seized power in April 1999 in a coup in the capital, Moroni.