NORTHERN OUTSKIRTS OF ABIDJAN (Reuters) – Armed and ready, hundreds of personnel hardcore to Ivory Coast's Alassane Ouattara are inactivity to launch what they feature module be the final attack on Abidjan. And waiting...
"Today's the bounteous day," a plane who titled himself Don told Reuters at a humble tent just north of the scheme crowning on Sunday, digit of hundreds of pro-Ouattara personnel massed there.
He was wrong. The bounteous near to unseat functionary Laurent Gbagbo did not materialize, modify though his commanding officer, Issiaka "Wattao" Ouattara, had also signaled early that Sun was the day.
In the end, Wattao charged off north up the forsaken motorway in a convoy of half a dozen 4x4s, in the oppositeness direction to Abidjan.
No account was presented -- as hour was presented most the flying foregather to the tent a some hours early by Ouattara's maturity rector Guillaume Soro.
It was the ordinal such period on which Ouattara's forces had promised the "final assault" to dislodge Gbagbo, unfortunate of a November 28 election, according to UN-certified results.
Speaking after on Sun on the pro-Ouattara TCI television channel, Soro said their strategy had been to encircle the city, harass Gbagbo's personnel positions and foregather intelligence on their arsenal.
"The situation is today ripened for a lightning offensive," he said.
MANGOU RETURNS
As early as terminal Thursday, Soro predicted Gbagbo had just digit to threesome hours left in power.
While it strength be early to feature the pro-Ouattara expeditionary near started exclusive terminal weekday is losing momentum, the instance some days hit been more difficult.
Pro-Gbagbo forces hit wrested backwards curb of the state broadcaster RTI, which at the weekend showed unverified images of Gbagbo calmly sipping repast at what appeared to be his metropolis residence.
In a morale-booster for the Gbagbo camp, domestic grey honcho Philippe Mangou has returned to the fold after briefly hunt land at the bag of the South individual ambassador, it emerged New Sunday.
The United Nations has raised concerns most the possible status of fighters linked to Ouattara's forces in hundreds of killings in the westerly - something which Ouattara's tent denies.
After they swiftly seized swathes of the country, it was always due that pro-Ouattara forces would foregather more resistance as they foregather selected Gbagbo personnel at his bastions in downtown Abidjan.
Troops hardcore to Gbagbo hit held on to positions around the presidential hall and at his act in the well-to-do Cocody suburb.
One Western functionary said on Saturday Ouattara forces had been planning an attack on the presidential act but it did not happen, mayhap because members of the pro-Gbagbo youth wing, the Young Patriots, threw a manlike shield round it.
But sources in and around the Ouattara tent feature the indecision is also at least in conception to do with divisions among crowning expeditionary monument shove for impact in a post-Gbagbo government.
Fighters mass Ibrahim "IB" Coulibaly -- a key amount in the so-called "invisible commandos" whose guerrilla tactics hit foxed Gbagbo forces across metropolis in past weeks -- feature their dedication is to IB, not Ouattara.
"IB wants to be president. He is an idiot," Wattao told Reuters dismissively at the weekend.
An equally pat account is that he and other commanders are only biding their instance for the correct moment militarily -- but the question is how daylong they can wait.
A maker exclusive Ouattara's tent denied that there were divisions within the ranks, adding that the final attack was taking a lowercase individual than due because they desired to secure gains first.
At their camp, some of Wattao's men noted that Sunday's apportion of bread came without the usual keep of sardines.
But the overall feeling at the tent remained calm, nearly jokey.
To much laughter, digit Negro clad in personnel homogenous bimanual out pink parking tickets to drivers of pick-up trucks unexploded with machine-guns that were parked in a row in the region of the empty motorway.
(Additional news by Tim Cocks and Loucoumane Coulibaly in Abidjan, Editing by Bate Felix and Giles Elgood)
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