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Bodies of three members of the Ivory Coast Republican Force (FRCI) lie in the guards' station at the entrance of the Akouedo military camp in Abidjan on August 6, 2012. A raid on the army base left at least six dead in the latest of a string of attacks targeting the military in the Ivory Coast economic capital. (Getty Images)
ABIDJAN (Reuters) - Gunmen killed five soldiers and seized weapons in a pre-dawn raid on an army camp in Ivory Coast's commercial capital Abidjan on Monday, military officials said, heightening fears of renewed instability in the world's top cocoa-growing country.
The West African state, where five soldiers were killed in a similar attack on a police station and army roadblock in another part of Abidjan only the day before, is emerging from years of political turmoil but remains awash with illegal weapons.
A group of unidentified heavily armed men in civilian clothes stormed the army camp in the Akouedo neighbourhood, on the eastern edge of the city, at around 3:30 a.m., an officer present at the base told Reuters.
Fighting lasted nearly three hours before the army took back control of the area.
"They attacked the two entrances to the camp simultaneously and opened fire. We've counted five dead on our side and one among the assailants," said Colonel Cherif Moussa, the Ivorian army's deputy chief of staff.
Reuters witnesses saw the bodies of four soldiers who had been shot in an office just inside the camp entrance. Another lay on the ground outside and appeared to have been beaten to death. Others were wounded in the gunbattle though officials did not immediately say how many.
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