Ivory Coast

[davidbfpo]

Two reports on the repeated French & UN action, helicopter gunships attacking Gbagbo's heavy weapons (I assume these to be 120mm mortars); BBC:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-13030543 and Daily Telegraph:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...residence.html

I was intrigued by these sentences, in the later report:

Among the French troops in the country are special forces and foreign legion units, who say privately that if the political will was there, they could remove Mr Gbagbo within days.
But a diplomatic source said that because of its fraught history in the country, and its commitments in Libya and Afghanistan, it is reluctant to get more involved.

"It might support and make suggestions, perhaps even be the hand in glove by offering some training to the (Mr Ouattara's Republican forces) but could not be seen to be taking its own military action," he said. He added that part of the reason for the reversals in fortunes were that both sides are prone to exaggeration, meaning they are often seen to lose ground they never entirely held.

[M-A Lagrange]

Thanks David for including links in english. Unfortunatelly I do not have time to search for it.

My personnal comment would be that Legionnaires and SF are right but it's rather linked to the difficult post-war context and IC-France relations that France is not willing. Lybia and Afgha are skeep goats in that particular case.