Ivorian pro-Gbagbo groups rampage against foreigners (Reuters)

ABIDJAN (Reuters) – Youth supporters of Ivory Coast's incumbent Laurent Gbagbo rampaged through the business district of Abidjan on Tuesday, pillaging shops owned by foreigners.

The violence followed a call on Friday by Ble Goude, the head of Gbagbo's youth wing, to resist an insurgency seeking to depose Gbabgo and install rival Alassane Ouattara, winner of a November 28 poll according to U.N.-certified results.

Security in the world's top cocoa grower is deteriorating, with gunbattles erupting for most of last week and hostilities resuming across a north-south ceasefire line that had been largely quiet since a 2002-3 war ended in stalemate.

Gbagbo's Young Patriots have long been notorious for xenophobic violence, including attacks against the country's French community in 2004, on its large Burkinabe and Malian communities and on northern Ivorians with cultural ties to them.

United Nations staff have also been attacked and robbed by pro-Gbagbo gangs this week after repeated broadcasts on state television accusing them of backing pro-Ouattara rebels. Gbagbo is furious with the mission for recognizing Ouattara's win.

U.N. investigators are trying to confirm whether Gbagbo breached an arms embargo by importing helicopters from Belarus. They had to abandon their search in the capital Yamoussoukro after his forces fired at them on the weekend.

A source at U.N. headquarters said information on the helicopter deal came from the intelligence services of one of the five permanent Security Council member states.

He said two helicopter gunships the U.N. mission urgently needed had arrived, which he called a "game changer" that would make it harder for Gbagbo's forces to attack U.N. patrols.

ANTI-FOREIGNER SENTIMENT

November's election was meant to heal divisions sown by a 2002-3 civil war that left the country divided into a rebel-run north and government-run south, but the dispute has worsened divisions and killed well over 300 people since November.

The U.N. says the number of Ivorian refugees in Liberia had reached 68,000, with another 40,000 internally displaced.

Anti-foreigner sentiment is at the core of the troubles that have dogged Ivory Coast for years and has worsened as most nations recognize Ouattara's win. Ouattara was twice barred from running in past polls because his father is from Burkina Faso.

"I don't understand what happened. The youths arrived ... and starting destroying the things in my shop. They looted everything and now I have nothing left," Senegalese shopkeeper Ismael Bah told a Reuters reporter.

"What did I do? I'm not involved in politics," he added.

Mobile phone retailer Mamadou Barro, also from Senegal, fell victim to a similar attack. "Everything I owned was invested in this business. Now it's gone," he said.

Insurgents believed to back Ouattara now control most of the northern Abidjan suburb of Abobo after the clashes, and a huge number of refugees have streamed out of it.

"The situation is now calm, with everything under control of the invisible commandos," said Abobo resident Vasseriki Sumaro, a teacher. "All the security forces have left."

Elsewhere in Abidjan, Young Patriots armed with guns, clubs and machetes have set up roadblocks and in some cases killed suspected rebels, local press and residents say.

In the rebel-held northern half of the country, residents complained that Gbagbo's forces, which seized the electricity and water distribution company last month, had cut both off since Monday morning.

"We consider this a grave violation of human rights." said the rebels' civilian spokesman Felicien Sekongo.

There was no immediate comment from Gbagbo's camp.

Separately, thousands of civil servants were anxiously waiting on Tuesday to see if they will be paid for the month of February, after an exodus of international banks.

"They promised us Friday, but I'm really afraid the money is going to run out," health ministry official Mathias Gosse said.

Gbagbo's government nationalized two French banks, saying they would reopen them soon, but analysts doubt it will work, as West Africa's central bank has cut ties with him.

Nine newspapers that either support Ouattara or are independent shut this week in protest at threats and harassment by Gbagbo's camp, press freedom watchdogs said.

(Additional reporting by Louis Charbonneau at the United Nations, Loucoumane Coulibaly in Abidjan and Charles Bamba in Bouake; writing by Tim Cocks; editing by Andrew Roche)

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Ivorian rebels seize town (Reuters)

By Loucoumane Coulibaly and Charles Bamba Loucoumane Coulibaly And Charles Bamba – Fri Feb 25, 12:49 pm ET

ABIDJAN/BOUAKE, Ivory Coast (Reuters) – Rebels controlling northern Ivory Coast have seized a town in government territory and said on Friday they were still advancing, raising the prospects of a return to open war.

Loyalists of Laurent Gbagbo, clinging to power after an election most of the world says he lost, confirmed the fall of Zouan-Hounien in an overnight attack and said they would fight to take it back.

"We're in the process of re-organizing ourselves," Yao Yao, head of operations of the pro-Gbagbo Front for the Liberation of the Greater West militia told Reuters by phone from the region.

The small, remote town lies in western Ivory Coast near the forested border with Liberia and is not on a key axis, but the fighting there marks a major escalation.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned that clashes this week in the main city, Abidjan, and in the west have taken the world's top cocoa grower closer to the brink of a new civil war.

Rebel spokesman Ouattara Seydou said the New Forces had been attacked from Zouan-Hounien and were moving south to another town held by Gbagbo loyalists.

Ivory Coast's spiral back toward a war fueled by ethnic animosities follows an election last November which Gbagbo's rival Alassane Ouattara is almost universally recognized to have won.

Gbagbo, in power for more than a decade, has refused to leave the presidency of once prosperous Ivory Coast, which has been split between north and south since a 2002-03 war.

He has so far retained the support of most of the armed forces and, in Abidjan, can also rely on the "Young Patriots," often violent youth supporters who erected roadblocks and set fire to buses and taxis on Friday.

U.N. WARNING

Their leader Charles Ble Goude on Friday called on people to set up "self-defense" units to protect themselves from the rebels, and ordered them to block U.N. peacekeepers, who are protecting Ouattara in a lagoon-side hotel.

Any such move risks pitting U.N. peacekeepers against unarmed but hostile civilians. In a statement issued by his spokesperson, Ban Ki-moon called for restraint on both sides while African Union mediators try to resolve the crisis.

Diplomacy has made no headway so far.

The spreading violence has killed more than 300 people according to the United Nations, but diplomats think that figure hugely understated because the military rarely discloses its casualties or civilians killed by soldiers.

The threat to supplies has pushed cocoa futures to their highest in more than 30 years.

Gun battles raged overnight in the Abobo neighborhood of the main city of Abidjan where insurgents, dubbed by local media the "invisible commandos," have risen up against Gbagbo.

"Gun shots were echoing everywhere throughout the night and there was heavy arms fire," said resident Souala Tiemoko as hundreds of people marched along the road out of the district of quarter of a million, salvaging whatever belongings they could.

Gbagbo's spokesman Ahoua Don Mello says the gunmen in Abobo are rebels who have come down from the north. Ouattara's parallel government says they are civilians and army defectors.

Fleeing businesses, and economic sanctions by the European Union and United States aiming to squeeze Gbagbo are fast wrecking the economy of this once prosperous nation.

Ivory Coast's 80,000 barrel per day SIR refinery, a target of Western sanctions, said on Friday it was operating "at a minimum" and is struggling to secure crude oil.

The U.N. refugee agency said it had reports that the number of people crossing into neighboring Liberia had jumped from around 100 per day to 5,000 after the latest clashes in western Ivory Coast.

(Additional reporting by Ange Aboa, Luc Gnago and Tim Cocks; writing by David Lewis and Tim Cocks; Editing by Matthew Tostevin)

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