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France Targets Ivorian Airforce


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French President Jacques Chirac has ordered any Ivorian planes used in recent air raids to be destroyed after the death of eight French peacekeepers.

French forces destroyed two Ivory Coast government planes on the ground at an airbase soon after the bombing, which also left 23 French soldiers injured.

They are the highest losses suffered by the former colonial power since it began deploying 4,000 troops last year.

Two additional companies are being dispatched to beef up the force.

A statement from the presidential palace in Paris said one US citizen was also killed in the Ivorian air strike on its troops at Bouake.

The president, it continued, had ordered the "immediate destruction of Ivorian military aircraft used in recent days in violation of the ceasefire".

Such action, the French statement said, was authorised by the United Nations mandate covering France's peacekeepers in Ivory Coast.

Along with the extra companies, France is redeploying three Mirage jets to the region.

'Aggression'

The French defence ministry earlier announced in Paris that two Ivorian Sukhoi-25 bombers had bombed a position of its Unicorn Force in Bouake at 1400 French time (1300 GMT) on Saturday.

IVORY COAST'S PEACE UNRAVELS

29 Sept: Ivorian parliament fails to agree citizenship laws, which were a key requirement of the January 2003 peace deal

13 Oct: Ivorian rebels say they will not disarm, as planned, until immigration laws are changed

28 Oct: Vendors selling newspapers accused of supporting the opposition are attacked by pro-government militants in Abidjan and southern towns

The New Forces order eight rebel ministers to return to the rebel-held north, saying it had discovered the government smuggling arms across its territory

4 Nov: Government launches air strikes on rebel-held territory in north

5 Nov: More government air strikes and clashes on the ground in north, as unrest erupts in Abidjan

Nov 6: French forces destroy two government warplanes after an air strike leaves French soldiers dead

"In response to this aggression, the Unicorn Force destroyed the two Sukhoi-25s at around 1415 [1315] at Yamoussoukro," it added.

Defence ministry spokesman Jean-Francois Bureau said the army had "responded in a situation of legitimate defense" and was now seeking "the immediate end of combat".

Survivors of the attack were evacuated to Abidjan, said Col Gerard Dubois, another French military spokesman in Paris, who did not indicate how badly injured they were.

An Ivorian military spokesman, Col Philipe Mangou, confirmed for AFP that the two Soviet-made ground attack planes were destroyed by the French at Yamoussoukro Airport.

The French military did not give details of how they were destroyed.

The former colonial power has ordered three Mirage F1CR jets based in Chad to be redeployed to nearby Gabon, as a precaution.

Caught in the middle

French peacekeepers, more usually accused by government supporters of siding with the rebels, faced violent protests earlier on Saturday in the rebel-held town of Mans as well as clashing with government supporters in Abidjan.

An angry group protested outside the French military barracks in Mans, accusing the French of colluding with the government and failing to stop attacks on rebel territory.

A French military spokesman said two vehicles had been burnt and a storeroom looted.

On Friday, UN troops stopped three columns of Ivorian army vehicles advancing into what is known as the "confidence zone" - a buffer area between the two sides. In one incident, soldiers fired warning shots.

Tensions reached boiling point in Ivory Coast after a disarmament deadline of 15 October was missed and rebels withdrew from the unity government.

The African Union voiced deep concern on Saturday, calling for both the government and rebels to refrain from any further violations of the truce they signed last year after a bitter civil war which split the country.

Neither side attended emergency talks hosted in Nigeria by President Olusegun Obasanjo, who chairs the AU.

The country has been split in two since last year's peace deal, with 10,000 French and UN troops deployed to monitor the ceasefire.

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Its all going on oui mon amie?

lets hope this isn't the start of another major conflict ...enough with the wars already ....polations make me mad!

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omg what are the French doing in a sovereign nation!

345982[/snapback]

laugh.gif

Damn French wanna take over the world. rolleyes.gif

345987[/snapback]

Frog by frog! laugh.gif

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Kellalor Posted Yesterday, 11:49 PM

  QUOTE(bathory @ Nov 6 2004, 09:46 PM)

omg what are the French doing in a sovereign nation!

Damn French wanna take over the world.

OMG, and here I thought it was the bad old United States that was the world's bad boy. It would seem that even the French can be pushed into an aggressive act. I suspect that somehow the world will find a way to blame the United States.

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Ivory Coast Mobs Attack French Base

Sunday, November 07, 2004

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast — Machete-waving mobs thousands-strong looted and burned in Ivory Coast (search)'s largest city Sunday, laying siege to a French military base and searching house to house for French families.

The violence came one day after ground and air clashes between French forces and its former colony.

About 250 French troop reinforcements landed at Abidjan's international airport, which was taken by France late Saturday after it destroyed what it said was the entire Ivory Coast air force — two Sukhoi warplanes and five helicopter gunships.

The reinforcements, bolstering a 4,000-man French peacekeeping force, flew from the West African nation of Gabon (search), where France was holding three Mirage fighter jets on standby.

Saturday's destruction came in retaliation for the Ivory Coast air force's surprise bombing of a French peacekeeping position in the north, held by Ivory Coast rebels since civil war broke out in the world's top cocoa producer in September 2002.

The airstrike killed nine French troops and one American civilian, a consultant working with an aid group, according to the U.S. Embassy.

Mob violence, sparked by loyalist anger at France's retaliatory attack, raged into a second day in Abidjan and the country's political capital, Yamoussoukro.

Loyalist throngs of thousands ruled the streets of Abidjan, setting up roadblocks of burning tires across the city. An Associated Press reporter watched as a crowd armed with machetes and iron bars entered a neighborhood near the city's main French military base, demanding to know if there were any French citizens living in the district.

"We are all terrified, and try to reassure each other," one French resident said by telephone from his home elsewhere in the city, speaking on condition his name be withheld. "We have been told by the embassy to stay at home. ... It is a difficult situation to live through."

France battled to hold back the mobs, dropping percussion grenades throughout the night on mobs massing at bridges, the international airport and the military base in the commercial capital, Abidjan, French military spokesman Col. Henry Aussavy said.

An Associated Press photographer in Yamoussoukro saw mobs of at least hundreds outside the French military base there.

France and the U.N. Security Council, meeting in emergency session Saturday, demanded President Laurent Gbagbo restore order.

Ivory Coast leaders sounded defiance instead.

National Assembly president Mamadou Coulibaly, No. 2 under Gbagbo, accused French President Jacques Chirac of arming Ivory Coast's rebels, telling France's Inter radio: "We have the feeling and we have the proof" of it.

Accusing France of "connivance with the rebels," Coulibaly demanded French troops "liberate the territory and then go."

Hard-liners inside and outside the government urged loyalists to rise up.

"I appeal to young patriots, wherever you are found, to take to the streets and liberate Ivory Coast," said the chairman of Ivory Coast's governing party, Pascal Affy Nguessan.

Nguessan accused the French of firing on the mansion of the president, Gbagbo. Fearing attempts to overthrow Gbagbo, loyalist leaders urged followers to form a "human shield" around his mansion.

Numerous French families contacted French authorities in Ivory Coast overnight, saying their homes were being attacked, Aussavy said.

Also overnight, electricity and phone lines at the French Embassy were cut, spokesman Francois Guenon said.

There was no word on casualties from mob attacks.

However, loyalists claimed at least six of their followers had been killed by the French, and state TV overnight briefly showed the bodies of what it said was five loyalists, journalists said.

Ivory Coast's fall into violence started Thursday, when Gbagbo's military reopened attacks on towns in the rebel-held north after a more than year-old cease-fire.

France and the United Nations jointly have more than 10,000 troops in the West African nation, manning a buffer zone between the rebel north and loyalist south.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,137846,00.html

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the reaosn france are involved is they used to run the place and its under a UN backed mission.

Completley different to Dubya's war in Iraq.

BAthory i really am dissapointed in you , cos i KNOW you understand the difference .

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the reaosn france are involved is they used to run the place and its under a UN backed mission.

Completley different to Dubya's war in Iraq.

Which makes the US and Britain's actions in Iraq totally illegal...War Criminals

Vimjams

ph34r.gif

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Now explain how France's occupation of The Ivory Coast and their efforts to remain in control is different than the United States and British forces in Iraq. Perhaps before they used force they needed to have some peace talks, and a few more U.N. resolutions. Sounds to me like France is interfering in a civil war. A civil war in a country that is not France. They are using aggressive military tactics and could cost the lives of innocent civilians. OMG, French President Jacques Chirac is arming the Ivory Coast rebels. When will this illegal military action stop, President Jacques Chirac should resign over his illadvised decision to enter into this military action. It is apparent that the rebels don't want them their, let them fight their own battles. The French should have moved for a more peaceful solution to this issue. Now the rebels may attack and more innocents may die.

Sound Familiar

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Now explain how France's occupation of The Ivory Coast and their efforts to remain in control is different than the United States and British forces in Iraq. Perhaps before they used force they needed to have some peace talks, and a few more U.N. resolutions. Sounds to me like France is interfering in a civil war. A civil war in a country that is not France. They are using aggressive military tactics and could cost the lives of innocent civilians. OMG, French President Jacques Chirac is arming the Ivory Coast rebels. When will this illegal military action stop, President Jacques Chirac should resign over his illadvised decision to enter into this military action. It is apparent that the rebels don't want them their, let them fight their own battles. The French should have moved for a more peaceful solution to this issue. Now the rebels may attack and more innocents may die.

Difference being , it isnt an occupation, its a peacekeeping force........

OMG its a un backed peackeeping mission , completley different................................

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Ohhh that is different the all powerful U.N. well excuse me while I bow and scrape. I am sorry the U.N. has no effect on me. They have proven to be a bunch of self absorbed, powerless, gossips. Is not the British and American forces in Iraq under the same guise, U.N. backing. There is a U.N. resolution that authorizes the use of force in ousting Saddam, correct. When is the rest of the world going to wake up and smell the bodies burning, folks the U.N. (Useless Ninnies) has no power to enforce any resolution, it barely has the power to write the resolution.

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no because we are involved in an invasion where we are the agressor.

How can you not see teh difference between this and the french inolvment in the Ivory coast as peackeepers lol???

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What if the residents of the Ivory Coast do not want French involvment in their issues? Will France and the all powerfull U.N.(Utterly Needless) pull out if the mandate of the citizens is that they are not welcome?

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this is the problem with america and george bush's america.

Every situation is not black and white, every situation does not have the same solution (which more often than not seems to be killing with ush).

The french are bloody PEACEKEEPING , they arent invading, controlling or running the country for god sake.

Its a completley differnet situation.

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What if the citizens of The Ivory Coast do not want them there? Will the French forces and the U.N.(Utterly Needless) with draw from their land?

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I am sorry the U.N. has no effect on me. They have proven to be a bunch of self absorbed, powerless, gossips.

That's your answer then is it. Just as long as you do not recognise legal authority, which regardless of your understanding the UN is...then it's ok to go about committing crimes.

Vimjams

ph34r.gif

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It works for the U.N. Only their crime is apathy, top heavy managment, and slow moving responses to a crisis. For an organization of that size to work effectively it must be scaled down and their powers focused on peace not on ecology, birth rates, sickness, and all of the other things they involve themselves with. They are a dinosaur and in desperate need of a complete overhaul. As for the French and their military activites in The Ivory Coast, my comments were meant as an illustration of just how quick the shoe can be put on the other foot. And when it is the right shoe being forced on to the left foot it kind of hurts don't it.

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Found this article on The Conflict in Ivory Coast, its very long so I have only pasted a quarter of it the rest you can read from the link below...pretty interesting...

he conflict in the west African nation of Ivory Coast [Côte d'Ivoire] can be traced to the military coup that took place in 1999. Up until then, the country, the world's largest cocoa producer, had been seen as a model of stability in the continent. The country is predominatly Muslim in the north of the country and predominantly Christian in the south and west.

By the time of the uprising by disgruntled soldiers on the night of September 18-19, 2002, the country was experiencing its sixth coup or attempted coup in the space of less than three years. The attempted coup began when as many as 800 soldiers mutinied before dawn after it was learned that some members of the army would be sacked and thus that hundreds of soldiers would be demobolized. It was reported that a number of those concerned were followers of the General Robert Guei, the instigator of the 1999 military coup who eventually lost power as a result of popular elections.

The city of Abidjan was the site of one of three simultaneous rebel attacks. But control of Abidjan, was secured by loyalist forces after a day of gun and mortar battle that reportedly killed at least 270 people. Among the victims of the putsch attempt were the country's Minister of the Interior, the former head of state, General (Robert) Guei, along with his wife, son, and grandchildren who all died in a gunfire attack on his home in Abidjan.

Though France, who has strong interests in this former colony of hers, had approximately 600 troops stationed in Abidjan under the terms of a bilateral agreement, the French government had not called on them to intervene.

Rebels announced on the following Sunday their willingness to enter negotiations with the government, provided that a third party intervene. To that effect, they sent a list of their demands to the French Embassy in the capital. The latter was reinforcing its troop presense in the country, officialy to help with the possible evacuation of French nationals which number in the vicinity of 20-thousand, and other foreigners. The rebel announcement came just as a military convoy of armored vehicles and tanks was approaching the central Ivory Coast city of Bouake and the northern town of Korhogthat that remained under the control of anti-government forces. Rebel demands were the reintegration of deserters into the army; the release from prison of military and paramilitary police officers; and better pay.

In the meantime, the home of former Prime Minister Alassane Ouattara, the leader of Ivory Coast's main opposition party, was set on fire. Ouattara had already taken refuge in the French Ambassador's residence. Henri Konan Bedie, another of the country's Former President, also sought refuge at the Canadian ambassador's residence.

On September 23, reports began coming out of gunfire being exchanged in Bouake, the country's second largest city. By then, rebels had taken control of the town of Tebissou, located about 70 kilometers south of Bouake near the political capital of Yamoussoukro, at the airport of which some French troops were being camped.

On September 24, 2002, heavy fighting broke out between both sides in Bouake. With more than 100 American children and staff caught at the International Christian Academy, a missionary boarding school, counted among those caught in the fighting there, U.S. Special Forces were dispatched to the region, following the request of the U.S. Ambassador to Ivory Coast, Arlene Render. Neighboring Ghana was to serve as a staging base for the 200 U.S. troops from the military's European Command. The situation at the Bouake missionary boarding school was eventually resolved after French troops rescued the people who had taken refuge there. France finished evacuating more than one-thousand of its citizens, and others, including hundreds of Americans, from rebel-held Bouake, Ivory Coast's second largest city on September 27.

In the meantime, it was reported the Ivoirian government was claiming the coup attempt to be supported by an unidentified neighboring country. The accusations led to attacks by Ivorian security forces and citizens against Ivory Coast's large community of immigrant workers from Burkina Faso. Nigeria meanwhile began providing assistance to the Ivoirian government in the form of three fighter jets which were dispatched to Abidjan. Military sources in the country were reported as saying that these would be used to fly over and, possibly, attacking rebel targets.

By September 28, 2002, calls were growing among West African leaders for France to take an active role in ending the rebellion. Ivory Coast Prime Minister Pascal Affi N'Guessan told French journalists that his government wanted France to help the government with logistical support in its battle with renegade soldiers. This was echoed by Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade, the head of ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States), who was quoted as saying that provided ECOWAS decides to send a multi-national force of West African peacekeepers to Ivory Coast, France should then send logistical aid. ECOWAS was itself meeting on September 29 in Accra, Ghana, to discuss the question of dispatching a peacekeeping force. The meeting would include Burkina Faso's President Blaise Compaore.

It was also announced by Ivorian Ambassador to the United Nations, Djessan Philippe Djangone-Bi, that Ivory Coast was upgrading its arsenal to combat heavily armed rebels though the source of the weapons remained undisclosed. He claimed the rebels to be armed young men originally from Burkina Faso, Sierra Leon, and Liberia. According again to Djangone-Bi, cocoa production would be unaffected by the rebellion; the country's cocoa belt and main ports of Abidjan and San Padre being untouched by fighting.

Continued here

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thats a nice little racist comment.

346819[/snapback]

Why? Why would it be racist? Hell, why would it be even as racist as calling americans sheeple or stupid or anything like that?

The french are known by frogs. Each time they sent a shipment, a bunch of frogs came with them. Thats how the thing started... people started saying "Oh no, the frogs are gonna arive soon."

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cat.gif three F-1's ??? didn't they stop making F-1's in the late 1970's ??

two-- SU-25's

together they don't even add up to half of an unmanned squadron-- cat.gifwacko.gif

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wunarmdscissor Posted Today, 11:06 AM

  French people consider it a racial insult.

Just so you know

Stellar I believe I am going to agree with wunarmdscissor on this one. I think the French find the "frog" thing insulting.

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