ABIDJAN (Reuters) - Around 20 Ivorian troops armed with machine guns and grenade launchers deployed on Monday close to the UN-guarded hotel in Abidjan being used as a base by presidential claimant Alassane Ouattara, a Reuters reporter saw.
The move comes after a two-week power struggle between Ouattara and incumbent Laurent Gbagbo, who both claim to have won a November 28 election that was meant to reunite the West African nation after a 2002-3 civil war.
Ouattara was declared the winner of the poll by the electoral commission and he has been recognised as the victor by the U.N. Security Council and almost all world leaders. But the country's pro-Gbagbo Constitutional Council declared Gbagbo the winner, saying the vote outcome had been rigged.
There was no immediate comment on the deployment from the military, which backs Gbagbo.
A Ouattara spokesman said government troops had attempted earlier to set up a checkpoint in a street near the Golf Hotel but that pro-Ouattara rebel troops had prevented them from doing so and forced them to move away.
"The New Forces (rebels) removed the checkpoint. There was shooting but they fired in the air," Patrick Achi said by telephone.
(Reporting by Ange Aboa; Writing by Tim Cocks; editing by Noah Barkin)
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