Shamma blog

Official: Ivory Coast rebels take 2 more towns

Rebels backing Ivory Coast's internationally recognized leader Alassane Ouattara extended their gains by capturing a strategic crossroads and advanced toward the capital Tuesday after four months of political chaos following the disputed election.

Incumbent leader Laurent Gbagbo's refusal to leave office is quickly degenerating into a full-scale war in the world's main cocoa-producing country, but accepting the rebels' support could prove risky for Ouattara if the fighters commit abuses in his name.

The United Nations said Tuesday that rebels had fired on a U.N. reconnaissance helicopter Monday afternoon. The shots failed to hit the helicopter, though the U.N. denounced the attack and said it constituted a war crime.

The U.N. also expressed alarm about an attack blamed on Gbagbo security forces that left at least 10 civilians dead in Abidjan, the country's largest city. Pro-Gbagbo youth also were accused of killing one man by putting a tire around his neck and setting him ablaze.

"Noting the increasing incidents of human rights violations and barbarous practices, we feel justified in questioning the control President Laurent Gbagbo has over his security forces and partisans," the local U.N. peacekeeping mission said in a statement Tuesday.

Up to 1 million people have fled the fighting and at least 462 people have been killed since the Nov. 28 presidential election. U.N.-certified results showed Ouattara won the election but he has been unable to assume office because Gbagbo is refusing to leave after a decade in power.

The political standoff has led to daily fighting in which Gbagbo's security forces have used heavy weapons against the population, acts the U.N. said could be crimes against humanity. Abidjan was once known as the Paris of Africa, but its chic downtown neighborhoods are now a puzzle of roadblocks manned by hooded youths allied with Gbagbo.

Ouattara, who is from the country's north, had long tried to distance himself from the rebels based there who fought in a brief civil war almost a decade ago that left the country split in two. However, rebels have been stepping up their offensive to install him in office in recent weeks.

Those efforts had been largely contained to the country's west and the northern section of Abidjan, though the latest advance indicates their presence is now widespread.

Capt. Leon Alla, Ouattara's defense spokesman, said the central city of Daloa fell at 1 a.m. Tuesday. Several hours earlier the town of Bondoukou in the country's east had fallen, he said.

The United Nations said that fighting was still raging Tuesday morning in the two towns — Daloa in the central region and Bondoukou in the east — and that some 20,000 people had sought refuge at a Catholic mission in a third city, Duekoue, that rebels seized Monday morning.

"Terrified displaced persons have been streaming in, some with gunshot wounds as they cannot receive emergency treatment from the local hospital," said Jacques Seurt, the U.N. refugee agency's emergency coordinator in Ivory Coast, describing conditions in Duekoue.

Highways from Daloa lead south to the port of San Pedro and east to the administrative capital of Yamassoukro. Advisers to Ouattara say that if the fighters take either San Pedro or Yamassoukro, Gbagbo will likely buckle and accept an offer of exile.

Access to the San Pedro port is considered to be especially important since it can be used to resupply the rebels who do not currently have access to the sea. The Abidjan port is still controlled by Gbagbo.

A military commander with the local U.N. mission said that pro-Ouattara forces are continuing to advance east out of Daloa toward Bouafle, only 35 miles (50 kilometers) from Yamoussoukro. Rebels left behind in Daloa have been looting businesses, he said, targeting Lebanese and Moroccan shopowners.

In the country's largest city of Abidjan, suspected supporters of Ouattara are being pulled out of their cars and burned alive or beaten to death with bricks and iron bars.

The majority of the U.N. count of 462 confirmed killings were carried out by Gbagbo's security forces against Muslims and northerners perceived as being supporters of Ouattara, Human Rights Watch said in a report released earlier this month.

But rebels allied with Ouattara are accused of carrying out revenge killings in a predominantly Ebrie village, an ethnic group that voted in large numbers for Gbagbo.

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Callimachi reported from Dakar, Senegal.