Ivory Coast fighting threatens 6-year ceasefire

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February 24, 2011

Ivory Coast fighting threatens 6-year ceasefire

MARCO CHOWN OVED Associated Press Thu Feb 24, 2011, 11:04 AM EST

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast — Heavy fighting in Ivory Coast over the country's disputed election may augur a return to civil war, the United Nations warned Thursday as clashes raged in Abidjan and in western regions of the country.

Residents reported automatic arms fire Thursday morning in the Abobo district of Abidjan, the commercial capital, after three days of heavy fighting between police forces loyal to incumbent leader Laurent Gbagbo, who refuses to cede power, and a force calling itself the "invisible commandos," believed to include former rebels.

Hundreds of people fled Abobo on Thursday on foot on the main road leading from the neighborhood, some pushing wooden carts, others with their possessions wrapped in sheets. Police sealed off the area and turned back all cars attempting to enter.

Fighting also broke out Thursday morning in the west of the country near the border with Liberia and Guinea, the local United Nations peacekeeping mission reported.

"This is a breach of the cease-fire that has been holding for the last six years," said spokesman Hamadoun Toure.

"It changes the game. Before it was clashes between police and protesters. Now if its the beginning of fighting between two armed forces, it could have serious consequences for the country or even the region," he said.

The development marks a significant escalation in the country's political crisis that erupted late last year after Gbagbo refused to accept defeat in the presidential election, even though U.N.-certified results showed he had lost the Nov. 28 vote by 9 percentage points to opposition leader Alassane Ouattara.

With the backing of the army, Gbagbo has stayed in the presidential palace while Ouattara has been in a barricaded hotel. Neighborhoods that voted in large numbers for him, including Abobo, have come under sustained attack by pro-Gbagbo forces, who are accused of killing over 300 people since the vote.

But the balance of power shifted Tuesday, as the "invisible commandos" allied with Ouattara launched their own attack. They claimed in a statement overnight that they killed 27 police officers in an ambush on Tuesday in Abobo.

In addition to the 27 dead security forces, the new group said it had also taken hostage three officers belonging to an elite paramilitary unit, set fire to one armored personnel carrier and had seized three paramilitary vehicles, 32 Kalashnikovs, several machine guns, four rocket-propelled grenades and two cases of grenades.

A military spokesman for the Gbagbo regime described the Tuesday incident as an "ambush by a group of more than fifty rebels."

"Under a deluge of fire, the (police) returned fire courageously," he said in a statement read on state television.

On Thursday a police vehicle was still in flames.

The commandos warned that they would take their battle soon to the downtown neighborhoods of Koumassi, Adjame and Yopougon.

Ouattara's prime minister warned last week that if Gbagbo refuses to stand down, his supporters would rise up in an "Egypt-style" revolution. He said they would be helped by the country's northern rebels, who are politically aligned with Ouattara.

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