The invasion by the African Union soldiers and federal government to retake control of the Comoros island of Anjouan from the rebel leader Colonel Mohamed Bacar was completed, officials said.

“Anjouan island is under total control of the army,” Major Ahmed Sidi told reporters at a joint press conference, according to Reuters. “So far we have no dead or wounded to lament. The rebel chiefs have all run away, and none has yet been found,” he added.

Comoros is an island nation in the Indian Ocean, located 250 miles off Africa's southeast coast with a population estimated at about 750,000 and it was caught in the middle of a series of political turbulences since gaining independence from France in 1975. Colonel Mohamed Bacar and his loyalists took over the island last May and Bacar declared himself president after he had won elections in June. The central government of the archipelago nation did not recognize the voting.

According to presidential officials, the Comoros army and nearly 450 Comoran soldiers backed by 1,500 AU troops participated in a so-called “first wave” of assaults on Anjouan, one of the three islands of the archipelago. Meanwhile, Tanzanian soldiers entered the capital Mutsamudu without resistance, witnesses reported. Sporadic explosions and gunfires were heard and the troops from Comoros almost immediately took control of the island.

Anjouan Journalist Jerome Delay said in a statement for CNN that the residents cheered the arriving soldiers and shouted, “Bacar is a dog” and “We want freedom.”

By late morning, there was still no word of Bacar’s location but the federal government's chief of defense staff, Mohamed Dosara claimed that the seeking would continue.