Guinea-Bissau names new army chief

Guinea-Bissau President Malam Bacai Sanha named former naval commander Jose Zamora Induta as the new head of the west African country's armed forces on Tuesday.

"You have the onerous task of turning our military into a republican entity that is modern, disciplined, obedient and submissive to political power," Sanha told Induta during his swearing-in ceremony.

Sanha urged the new army chief to "put an end to division and exclusion" throughout the military and "create a climate of peace and national harmony."

Sanha became president on September 8 after his predecessor Joao Bernardo Vieira was tortured and murdered by soldiers in March.

Vieira's death was an apparent revenge for the death of army chief General Batista Tagme Na Waie, who was killed in a bomb attack that same month.

The former president's widow, Boukounta Diallo, has alleged that "senior" officials were behind her late husband's assassination and has called for a proper investigation to be carried out.

The army is highly influential in Guinea-Bissau, an impoverished West African country that was torn apart by civil war in the late 1990s.

It gained independence from its former colonial master, Portugal, in 1974.