The West African bloc ECOWAS condemned a coup attempt in Guinea-Bissau on Thursday, Ivorian Foreign Minister Daniel Kablan Duncan announced in Abidjan.

"We have received some difficult information from Guinea-Bissau, and this information indicates to us that there is a coup underway," the minister told reporters after a meeting of the 15-nation regional group in Mali.

"ECOWAS formally and rigorously condemns such an attempted coup d'etat," he added.

ECOWAS "has sufficient capacity to intervene on two fronts," he added, referring to trouble already underway in Mali where Islamist extremists and Tuareg rebels seized the country's vast north.

Guinea-Bissau troops began their coup attempt late Thursday, attacking the prime minister's residence and taking over ruling party headquarters and the national radio station.