ABIDJAN, Nov 6 (AFP) - Ivory Coast government warplanes carried out a devastating raid on a French army camp Saturday killing at least nine soldiers, prompting a French retaliation as the west African country slid closer back to civil war.
After the attack in which a US citizen was also reported killed and 23 people wounded, French President Jacques Chirac ordered the destruction of all government planes involved in ceasefire violations.
French forces blew up the two Ivorian warplanes in immediate retaliation for the attack, after they landed in the Ivory Coast's administrative capital Yamoussoukro.
Eight soldiers were killed in the attack and a ninth died later as a result of wounds.
France also ordered 300 more troops to Ivory Coast to buttress its 4,000-member peacekeeping force, as fighting broke out between French and Ivorian troops at Abidjan international airport, during which a French military transport plane was damaged.
Paris also scrambled three Mirage fighter jets from Chad to Libreville in Gabon.
Skirmishes were also reported between Ivorian government and rebel troops near Bouake, where a UN spokesman said artillery exchanges could be heard.
France has had troops stationed in Ivory Coast since last year after helping to mediate a peace agreement following the breakout of a civil war in 2002, but the implementation of the pact has been fitful and Ivory Coast has remained divided.
Chirac called Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo after the attack "to warn him against any act liable to break the ceasefire" between the government and rebel New Forces holding the north of the country, presidency officials said.
Resentment against France boiled up in Abidjan, where youths chanting anti-French slogans looted and torched four French schools, witnesses said.
The slide toward renewed civil war in the former French colony intensified earlier in the week when government forces bombarded rebel positions in the north. The attacks drew a sharp rebuke from the African Union, which accused the government of going back on agreements to work for national reconciliation.
France said two Russian-built Sukhoi 25 Frogfoot fighter-bombers of the Ivorian government air force hit a French encampment in the central rebel stronghold of Bouake on Saturday, killing and injuring the soldiers.
French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier said France had destroyed the Ivorian aircraft as an act of legitimate self-defense.
French military sources told AFP that in addition to the Sukhoi fighter-bombers that five Mi-24 helicopters were also targetted by French forces, which is just about all of the military aircraft the Ivorian government forces possess.
African Union officials warned that the government air raids against the rebel-held northern part of the country could push the country back towards civil war.
President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, the AU chairman, said he was deeply concerned about the violence, which he said "clearly contradicts the process of national reconciliation" as expressed in two peace agreements signed at Marcoussis in France and in Accra, Ghana.
The UN Security Council summoned an emergency meeting Saturday after Chirac called UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.
Barnier said it was up to President Gbagbo to "assume his responsibilities" and restore calm.
France's position was buttressed by the European Union's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, who accused Gbagbo's forces of violating peace accords. Solana said the attack on the French peace-keepers was "inadmissable," and warned Gbagbo he was responsible for the safety of all foreigners in the country, including the 14,000 French nationals. The future of the Ivory Coast's relationship with the EU depended on it, he said.
In attacks apparently ordered by Gbagbo, government jets Thursday began pounding cities in the north, which has been under the control of the New Forces since September 2002 when an insurrection erupted in the wake of a failed military coup.
The attacks were the most serious ceasefire violation since the French-brokered Marcoussis agreement in January last year that was intended to bring the rebel leaders into a unity government.
The French Unicorn force along with 6,000 United Nations peacekeepers polices a "confidence zone" set up to separate the warring parties while political dialogue takes place.
The New Forces warned they would launch an assault if government forces cross into the UN-controlled zone. The head of the New Forces, Guillaume Soro, described the air raids as a "coup d'etat" and accused Gbagbo of pushing the country back towards war to serve his own political interests.
New Forces spokesman Sidiki Konate told AFP it would be considered an act of war if the government forces crossed the buffer zone, warning the rebels "will give our forces the green light to head to Abidjan."
Konate said the government air raids earlier this week had left 11 people dead and around 100 seriously wounded. Reports said Senagalese and a Malian national may have been among the dead.
According to Konate, angry demonstrators on Saturday attacked French troops based in the rebel-held western town of Man, accusing them of supporting the government air raids and calling for them to leave Ivory Coast.
The French military confirmed the force had been targeted by "very aggressive" demonstrators.
11/06/2004 21:38 GMT - AFP