ANTANANARIVO (AFP) - The military assault on Madagascar's presidential compound is aimed at forcing President Marc Ravalomanana to leave power as soon as possible, the country's army chief told AFP Monday. "We seized the presidency to hasten Ravalomanana's departure," Madagascan army chief of staff Colonel Andre Andriarijaona said. He was speaking to AFP by phone moments after around 100 soldiers backed by tanks stormed the president's office in the capital Antananarivo, leaving Ravalomanana's grip on power hanging by a thread. The army chief said there was no immediate plan to conduct a similar operation on the presidential palace outside the city centre where the 59-year-old leader and a handful of loyal members of his guard were holed up. "We are against any bloodletting, so we won't go there until we obtain guarantees on the presidential guard's intentions," he explained. Madagascar's presidential guard is made up of some 500 men but top security officials told AFP earlier Monday that some of its members had defected and aligned with the army. Meanwhile, opposition leader Andry Rajoelina earlier rejected Ravalomanana's offer for a referendum to decide their three-month-old feud and urged the country's security forces to arrest him for "high treason". Soldiers wearing red berets and armed with RPGs surrounded the presidential compound after dusk and moved in after a military official using a loudspeaker ordered all remaining guards and staff still inside to leave. Two armoured vehicles smashed the compound's gates open. Two large explosions and heavy automatic gunfire were heard inside the presidency soon after, an AFP correspondent reported. "What we are doing tonight is symbolically occupying the presidency and securing the compound," a colonel told reporters near the scene, as a spotlight swept the building following a brief flurry of gunfire. It was not immediately clear whether the soldiers storming the presidency encountered any resistance. "We seized the presidency to hasten Ravalomanana's departure," Madagascan army chief of staff Colonel Andre Andriarijaona told AFP. As the military upped the pressure on the president's shrivelling power, Rajoelina told thousands of supporters gathered in Antananarivo's May 13 square earlier that his three-month-old bid to unseat his rival would soon bear fruit. "I order the security forces to execute, without delay, the measures by the minister," the firebrand 34-year-old opposition leader said, referring to an arrest warrant. "I repeat that victory is near." The warrant for "high treason" was announced minutes earlier on the capital's May 13 square by Christine Razanamahasoa, who is the justice minister in a parallel administration set up by Rajoelina last month. A top security official, General Gilbain Pily, told AFP that he had not yet been informed of the warrant, whose legal value was dubious since it was issued by an administration which is not internationally recognised. Pily said several members of Ravalomanana's 500-strong presidential guard, the last security force still loyal to him, had defected. "Members of the guard have freely reintegrated the units in which they were trained, in the gendarmerie, police or army," Pily said. Andriarijaona said there was no immediate plan to assault the presidential palace in Iavoloha where the embattled president found refuge. "We are against any bloodletting, so we won't go there until we obtain guarantees on the presidential guard's intentions," he explained. Rajoelina, accusing his rival of being a dictator starving his people, has used his charisma and own private television station to mount a brazen challenge on the country's top office. Meanwhile the African Union's Peace and Security Council convened an emergency meeting over the crisis and "condemned all acts that lead to crises."