U.S. troops head for Ivory Coast as fighting rages
( 2002-09-25 11:07 ) (7 )

U.S. troops headed for West Africa on Wednesday to rescue Americans trapped by six days of fighting in Ivory Coast.

A military uprising has left at least 270 people dead and displaced thousands.

Bursts of gunfire and the sound of anti-tank rockets echoed through Bouake, the country's second city, as loyalist troops and renegade soldiers fought gunbattles on Tuesday.

Among those caught by the fighting in Bouake are 160 Americans, including scores of children at a school.

The clashes died down by nightfall and renegade troops said they had beaten off an attack by the army. There was no independent confirmation as residents hid in their homes. /

"The battle was fierce. The others attacked us again, but we have beaten them off again and pushed them far away," Corporal Serge Coulibaly told Reuters by telephone. He said fighting centered on an academy for non-commissioned officers in the city.

"Since they have shown no sign of negotiating we will now prepare to move toward Abidjan," he said.

The uprising, which started on Thursday, has plunged the world's top cocoa producer into its worst crisis since independence from France in 1960.

The northern town of Korhogo, an opposition stronghold, is also under the rebel soldiers' control.

French troops, on standby to rescue foreigners, said they were sending a unit closer to Bouake from their 200-strong base in the administrative capital Yamoussoukro, 60 miles south of the city and 150 miles north of the main city of Abidjan.

"The United States is committed to ensuring the safety of its citizens," said U.S. Lt. Commander Donald Sewell, a Defense Department spokesman, announcing that American troops were being dispatched .

A defense official confirmed later on Tuesday that the U.S. forces were headed first for neighboring Ghana and appeared unlikely to arrive by the end of the day.

Between 2,000 and 3,000 American civilians live in Ivory Coast, once regarded as an island of relative stability in a turbulent region.

Ivorian officials reiterated on Tuesday their belief that neighboring countries were involved in the uprising and said the government would lodge a complaint with the United Nations ( news - web sites) and the African Union.

"Our country is under attack by gunmen, professional terrorists recruited in neighboring countries to kill, loot and, ultimately, if they get their own way, destabilize the state," said national assembly's speaker Mamadou Koulibaly. .

Koulibaly did not name any country, but Ivory Coast has in the past accused northern neighbor Burkina Faso of training dissidents.

Loyalist security forces at the weekend set fire to the homes of immigrants, mostly Burkina Faso nationals. U.N. officials in Geneva estimated that up to 5,000 people had been displaced around the main city of Abidjan.

Burkina Faso has shut its border.

Ivory Coast also shares a border with war-scarred Liberia, where rebels bent on toppling President Charles Taylor have intensified their struggle in recent months.

To try to broker a peaceful solution to the crisis, Morocco and Gabon invited African leaders to a summit in Marrakesh on Thursday. The Economic Community of West African States regional bloc also said its leaders would meet in Senegal on Saturday to discuss the situation.

There was no mention of the army mutineers, who say they are soldiers unhappy at being discharged in an efficiency drive, joining any peace talks.

As well as producing 40 percent of the world's cocoa crop, Ivory Coast is sub-Saharan Africa's third biggest economy, the engine of the French-backed West African CFA franc currency zone and a vital port for landlocked countries to the north.

A 1999 coup destroyed its stable reputation and hundreds died around turbulent 2000 elections.

But the current uprising is the first time the country has been split between heavily armed factions or slid to the brink of the kind of savage conflict that wrecked nearby Liberia or Sierra Leone.