Ivorian Rebels Threaten French

This country’s rebel factions threw down the gauntlet to France on Monday, saying any attack by the former colonial ruler on rebel positions would trigger an all-out offensive.

The rebel groups met Monday in Bouake, the stronghold of the main Patriotic Movement of Ivory Coast faction, or MPCI, to discuss forming an alliance -- two days after French troops blasted three rebel pickup trucks attacking a town in the west.

Frightened refugees fled the scene of the latest clashes, joining tens of thousands already forced from their homes by a war that has increasingly split Ivory Coast along ethnic lines since a failed Sept. 19 coup.

The MPCI rebels signed a truce in October and began talks in neighboring Togo with government negotiators. But these have brought little sign of a deal, and the emergence of two new factions last month shattered the cease-fire in the world’s top cocoa grower.

The Ivorian Popular Movement of the Far West, or MPIGO, and the Movement for Peace and Justice, or MJP, launched attacks on towns in the western cocoa-growing belt and advanced south toward French troops dug in at the key junction town of Duekoue.

But the MPIGO’s attack was halted by French troops Saturday when they opened fire to stop the rebels, effectively holding the line for President Laurent Gbagbo’s mercenary-backed forces.

The three rebel groups said in a joint statement after their meeting Monday that another French attack on their positions would be considered a casus belli, or cause for war. They said six rebels were killed in the French attack Saturday.

“The MPCI, the MPIGO and the MJP will then launch a widespread attack on all fronts,” the groups said.

The clash at Duekoue on Saturday was the first time the French had opened fire to stop the rebels since France began beefing up its operation into its biggest African intervention force since the 1980s, with up to 2,500 troops.

“If they try to go through our positions, we are obliged to open fire if they open fire,” French army spokesman Frederic Thomazo said before the rebel announcement. The Foreign Ministry in Paris had no comment on the rebel threat.