ABIDJAN, (Reuters) – U.N. and French helicopters attacked forces loyal to incumbent Ivory Coast leader Laurent Gbagbo late into last night, damaging the presidential residence and destroying heavy weapons that U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon ordered silenced.
Gbagbo has refused to step down since U.N.-certified elections last November showed his rival Alassane Ouattara won, reigniting a civil war that has claimed over a thousand lives and uprooted over a million people.
“The operations are on going,” Hamadoun Toure, spokesman for