Nairobi/Bissau, Guinea Bissau  - The head of the army of Guinea Bissau, General Batista Tagme Na Wai, was killed in an attack on the army headquarters in the capital Bissau, news reports said Monday.

At least five people were injured in the explosion on the compound which occurred late Sunday evening and destroyed part of the building, the BBC reported.

Army officers of the small West-African state then ordered two private radio stations to cease broadcasting in order to "protect the journalists."

Bissau, Guinea-Bissau  - Guinea Bissau's former ruling party the PAIGC has won a parliamentary majority in elections seen as crucial for bringing stability to the tiny West African nation, an election monitoring official said Friday.

Javier Gutierrez, spokesperson for the European Union election monitoring mission that observed last Sunday's polls, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa that provisional results showed the PAIGC scooped 67 seats out of an possible 100.

The previous coalition government fell apart in August when the PAIGC (African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde), which had 45 seats in parliament, abandoned a national stability pact.

Bissau - Tiny West African nation Guinea Bissau has arrested the head of its navy after he allegedly telephoned senior officers and asked them to help overthrow President Joao Bernardo Vieira, reports said.

"We have foiled a coup attempt that was to have been carried out early on Thursday by a group of officers led by Rear Admiral Jose Americo Bubo Na Tchuto, head of the navy," the BBC reported army spokesman Col Arsenio Balde as telling reporters late Friday in Bissau.

Balde said that Na Tchuto, who is under house arrest, was turned in by senior army officers after he asked them to join the coup attempt.

Guinea Bissau is currently in the grip of political turmoil after President Vieira dissolved parliament earlier this week.