Loyalists Say They Foiled Attempt on Life of Ivory Coast Junta Leader

Loyalist soldiers said they drove back mutinous attackers who stormed the home of Ivory Coast’s junta leader Monday in an assassination attempt.

The predawn gunfire marked widening political and military divisions ahead of an Oct. 22 presidential election and underscored fears of growing instability in this West African nation, once a model of prosperity and calm.

Two presidential bodyguards were killed in a two-hour gun battle, officials said. Four others were badly injured, they added, though it was not immediately clear if they were attackers or guards.

“Some young military people were more or less invited by certain people known to me to make an attempt on my life,” junta leader Brig. Gen. Robert Guei, who came to power in a December coup, said in a nationally televised broadcast.

Officials said four of the approximately 20 attackers had been arrested.

The apparent foolhardiness of an attack by a few gunmen, and the government’s swift arrests and public airing of the evidence, sparked skepticism. Some suspected that the attack had been scripted by the junta to give the government an excuse to crack down on Guei’s opponents.