Posted on 11/06/2004 6:35:52 PM PST by conservativecorner
PARIS (Reuters) - France has ordered more troops to Ivory Coast to protect French citizens after nine French soldiers and a U.S. aid worker were killed in a government bombing raid and Ivory Coast troops fired on French forces. French President Jacques Chirac ordered the Ivory Coast planes involved in the Saturday airstrike destroyed and a defense source said French forces would also destroy five Ivorian military helicopters, leaving the country with only one helicopter.
Mobs of machete-wielding pro-government supporters rampaged through Abidjan, furious at the French destruction of the planes. Plumes of smoke rose from the plush Cocody suburb.
The French embassy said a French school in Cocody had been set ablaze, four French policemen were evacuated from a building by helicopter before it too was burned down and that there was a loud explosion near the embassy.
The escalating tension between the East African country and its former colonial ruler followed three days of a government air offensive to retake the rebel-held north of the country.
French troops, in the Ivory Coast alongside U.N. soldiers as part of a 10,000-strong contingent to keep rebels and government forces from fighting, came under fire on Saturday, military officials said.
Two additional companies of troops were being sent to the Ivory Coast to protect French nationals there, Chirac's office said. The defense ministry source said the two companies comprised a total of 300 soldiers.
A French military spokesman in Abidjan said Paris was also sending three Mirage fighter planes and one supply aircraft to the West African country of Gabon as reinforcements.
Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie told a news conference late on Saturday France was holding Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo "personally responsible" for maintaining public order in Abidjan.
Asked whether the bomb attack that killed the nine French soldiers, close to the rebel-held city of Bouake, was deliberate or committed in error, the French army's communications advisor Gerard Dubois told Reuters that that was a question only Ivorian officials could answer.
"For now, error or no error, that's up to the Ivorian government to say," he said.
"The President of the Republic has ordered the immediate destruction of the Ivorian military aircraft used in recent days in violation of the cease-fire," the office of French President Jacques Chirac said in a statement.
A defense ministry source told Reuters France was targeting five MI-24 helicopters, in addition to the Sukhois it has already eliminated. Destroying the seven aircraft would leave the Ivorian airforce with just one aircraft, the defense ministry source said.
I got 10 bucks that says the French are gonna get their asses handed to them on a platter then blame the US for not helping.
The Ivory Coast is pleased to announce it's new Capitol, Paris.
After all the French are really just after the oil.
I'm sorry, but we need to do a global test on this.
Some with the Germans and some with the Allies.
I think their reason for this is so they would have an opportunity to surrender twice.
Once to each side.
The French have not explored all possible avenues for peace. They are acting unilaterally without conferring with the nations of the world. The French are acting beyond the actions of a civilization in line with the world community.
No blood for cocoa! No blood for cocoa!!
Hmmm, can't we all just get along? What's with the French, attacking another country like that? And a former colony, too. How evil is that! Rogue nation, out of control! Every other insult heaped on the US by Euroweenies...insert here.
Yeah, where is that aircraft carrier, anyway? Well, maybe they have freight service in the Ivory Coast.
Does the Ivory Coast have any oil?
Key French battle of World War II - the Battle of Dakar. French troops defeated by French troops.
Did both sides surrender or did they have a coin toss?
The ones anwerable to the Nazis were afraid not to fight, so they held their ground. The ones fighting with the British ended up retreating.
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