Ivory Coast Strongman's Supporters Repel Attack

Hide caption Soldiers loyal to Ivory Coast's president-elect, Alassane Ouattara, lined up at a base in the Youpougon neighborhood of Abidjan on Friday. Ouattara said his forces would contain entrenched strongman Laurent Gbagbo, who remained holed up in a bunker at the presidential residence in Abidjan, and will focus on normalizing life in the besieged city. Previous Next Rebecca Blackwell/AP

Hide caption Women sell goods at a market in Abidjan's Abobo suburb on Thursday, a sign that life in that part of the city was starting to return to normal. Fighting had shifted to the nearby, upmarket neighborhood of Cocody. Previous Next Issouf Sanogo/Getty Images

Hide caption A woman and child passes a group of Ouattara troops who were sharing a Friday morning meal at a base in the Youpougon neighborhood. Previous Next Rebecca Blackwell/AP

Hide caption Ouattara (right) held a meeting with the U.N. assistant secretary-general for human rights, Ivan Simonovic, on Thursday. The U.N. said Friday that it had found more than 100 bodies in several western cities. Previous Next Getty Images

Hide caption A soldier loyal to Ouattara sits in a pickup truck behind a belt of ammunition Thursday as he waits to deploy from an operating base at one of the main entrances to Abidjan. Previous Next Rebecca Blackwell/AP

Hide caption Members of the France's military help French nationals and other foreigners evacuate from a hotel in Abidjan on Thursday. France has evacuated 2,430 foreigners, including French citizens and those of other countries from the fighting in Abidjan. Previous Next Emmanuel Ekra/AP

Hide caption Ouattara's soldiers point to men they claim to recognize among several dozen prisoners captured during fighting and patrols in Abidjan, Ivory Coast on Wednesday. Previous Next Rebecca Blackwell/AP

Hide caption Soldiers fighting for Ouattara prepare for an assault on the residence of Ivory Coast strongman Laurent Gbagbo. Previous Next Getty Images

Hide caption FRCI (Republican Force of Ivory Coast) soldiers fighting for Ouattara prepare for an assault on Gbagbo's residence. Gbagbo insists he remains the legitimately elected president of Ivory Coast and will not relinquish power to Ouattara. Previous Next Getty Images

Hide caption A soldier fighting for Ouattara mans a weapon. Ouattara's forces have received strict instructions to take Gbagbo unharmed. Previous Next Getty Images

Hide caption Soldiers loyal to Ouattara head for battle on Wednesday. Their forces have reportedly fired on a bunker in the presidential compound where Gbagbo has taken shelter. Previous Next Rebecca Blackwell/AP

Hide caption Backers of Ivory Coast strongman Laurent Gbagbo seized by supporters of Ivory Coast's internationally recognized leader Alassane Ouattara are held on Tuesday at the Golf Hotel, Ouattara's headquarters in Abidjan. Previous Next Getty Images 1 of 12 i View slideshow

Supporters of Ivory Coast's embattled strongman, Laurent Gbagbo, on Wednesday pushed back an armed group trying to force him out of a subterranean bunker where he has taken shelter.

Gbagbo has refused to relinquish power to the country's internationally recognized president-elect, Alassane Ouattara. Heavy arms fire rang out Wednesday as forces loyal to Ouattara assaulted Gbagbo's compound in the main city of Abidjan, diplomats and witnesses said.

A spokesman for Ouattara's fighters, Yves Doumbia, said the fighters breached the gates of the compound only to be forced to retreat in the face of the heavy artillery unleashed by Gbagbo's guards.

"We retreated but are preparing for a second assault," Doumbia said by telephone.

toggle caption Rebecca Blackwell/AP

Affoussy Bamba, another spokeswoman for Ouattara, said on France 24 television that the residence is surrounded by heavy weaponry.

"Now the objective is to capture him," he said.

Ouattara's forces have received strict instructions to take him unharmed, several members of the president's Cabinet said.

Gbagbo, who insists he is the winner of last year's presidential election, has suffered debilitating losses in the past two days. United Nations Mi-24 helicopters attacked and destroyed his arms depots on Monday. On Tuesday, his soldiers were seen abandoning their posts across the city, some rushing inside a church to tear off their uniforms and dump their weapons before discreetly exiting in civilian clothes.

Gbagbo's camp accuses Paris of meddling and declaring war on him.

Analysts say Ouattara is acutely aware that while he won last year's election with 54 percent of the vote, Gbagbo received 46 percent — representing nearly half the electorate. A diplomat who speaks to Ouattara frequently said that the leader is aware of the danger involved at this stage, because if Gbagbo is killed it may galvanize his supporters.

France and the United Nations said negotiations were under way earlier this week for Gbagbo's exit, but the defiant leader appeared on a French television station Tuesday to say he was neither willing to step down nor surrender.

"My voice is not the voice of a martyr and my goal is not to die," he said.

Gbagbo said he's prepared to talk to Ouattara, but that is not handing over power to him, NPR's Ofeibea Quist-Arcton, reporting from Accra in neighboring Ghana, said. Even so, Choi Young-jin, the top United Nations envoy in Ivory Coast, said by telephone that Gbagbo's surrender was "imminent."

"He accepted [the] principle of accepting the results of the election, so he doesn't have many cards in his hands," Choi told Associated Press Television News. "The key element they are negotiating is where Mr. Gbagbo would go."

France's Foreign Minister Alain Juppe has said that Gbagbo would be required to relinquish power in writing and must formally recognize Ouattara.

After amassing Monday at the outskirts of the city, Ouattara's fighters seized the presidential residence where Gbagbo has been holed up overnight. They moved in after the United Nations agreed to act on a Security Council resolution giving their peacekeepers the right to take out Gbagbo's heavy artillery.

A spokesman for Ouattara, Patrick Achi, said that Gbagbo would be safe if he surrendered peacefully.

"The instruction is to get him alive, that's the instruction of President Ouattara, because we need a trial; we need to bring him to justice and be accountable for all he has done," Achi said.

President Obama said Tuesday the role of the U.N. was necessary to end the conflict. Ouattara's forces had taken more than three-quarters of the countryside between Monday and Wednesday of last week, but then faltered when they reached Abidjan, where Gbagbo had created a protective radius, manned by his most faithful soldiers.

Hundreds of civilians have been killed in deadly fighting in Abidjan and in western Ivory Coast since the disputed presidential vote in November.

In the recent fighting, "civilians have been barricading themselves into their homes," Quist-Arcton said.

"They've been trapped in their homes with no food, no water, no security, no electricity," she said. "They are terrified that there are armed men — pro-Gbagbo militias, pro-Ouattara forces — roaming around pillaging, looting, attacking civilians."

Ivory Coast gained independence from France in 1960, and some 20,000 French citizens still lived there when a brief civil war broke out in 2002.

French troops were then tasked by the U.N. with monitoring a cease-fire and protecting foreign nationals in Ivory Coast, which was once an economic star and is still one of the few countries in the region with four-lane highways, skyscrapers, escalators and wine bars.

NPR's Ofeibea Quist-Arcton contributed to this report, which contains material from The Associated Press