PARIS (AFP) - The Ivory Coast military resumed attacks on positions held by former rebels, French Defence Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said on a French radio station.
The "bombing resumed this morning, I can confirm this to you, at 12:30 (French time)," Alliot-Marie said Friday on France Inter.
France has troops patrolling ceasefire lines alongside UN peacekeepers in the divided west African country, where military and political violence between government and opposition forces broke out Thursday.
Paris issued a fresh call for the parties in the conflict to "fully respect the ceasefire" in Ivory Coast, foreign ministry spokesman Herve Ladsous said.
On Thursday, military aircraft attacked strongholds of the ex-rebel New Forces (NF) at Bouake in central Ivory Coast and Korhogo in the north, leading NF officials to describe the country`s shaky peace pact as "defunct".
"This really is an extremely worrying situation," Alliot-Marie said.
Three people died and at least 40 were reported wounded in Thursday`s raids, which Ivorian military officials said had achieved their objectives.
Ex-rebel camps as well as strategic targets in both cities were destroyed in the raids, the Ivorian military said Friday, while another military source told AFP that the "bombing will continue".
With overnight arson attacks on opposition party buildings in Abidjan and increasingly belligerent language from both sides in the divided country, regional leaders have scrambled to cool down the situation.
Radical young supporters of Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo ransacked the Abidjan offices of two main opposition parties late Thursday, also torching the offices of three pro-opposition newspapers.
Regional leaders rushed to cool down the crisis, while UN agencies suspended relief and humanitarian work in the country in response to the fighting.
FN officials who were Thursday in Togo, whose President Gnassingbe Eyadema is regional mediator in the two-year-old conflict, insisted after the initial air raids that they remained determined to prevent a slide back into war.
11/05/2004 - 14:15 GMT - AFP