By Ange Aboa and Tim Cocks
ABIDJAN (Reuters) - Forces loyal to Ivory Coast presidential claimant Alassane Ouattara seized two towns in the heart of the western cocoa belt overnight, in an offensive that may enable them to move towards a major port.
Witnesses and fighters from both sides said on Tuesday that the former rebels, who have controlled northern Ivory Coast since the civil war of 2002-3, had seized Daloa from incumbent leader Laurent Gbagbo's troops.
They also took Duekoue, potentially opening up a route to the major exporting port of San Pedro.
The area they now control produces about 600,000 tonnes of cocoa a year, half of Ivory Coast's output.
A violent dispute over last November's presidential election that U.N.-certified results showed Ouattara won, but which Gbagbo refuses to concede, has rekindled the civil war it was meant to settle for good, with heavy fighting in the main city Abidjan and across much of a north-south cease-fire line.
Up to one million Ivorians have now fled fighting in Abidjan alone, according to the U.N. refugee agency. Others have been uprooted across the country and around 100,000 have crossed into Liberia to the west.
A source in the pro-Gbagbo military said Daloa and Duekoue had fallen, but fighting continued in parts of Duekoue.
"The combat was very violent in Daloa the whole night, but we couldn't keep our positions," he told Reuters. "It has fallen into rebel hands."
Daloa is sympathetic to Ouattara and Duekoue is mixed, yet many of the areas surrounding them are hostile and teeming with pro-Gbabgo militias, which could make the march south tough.
"The rebels are patrolling everywhere in pick-ups," said Daloa resident and cocoa farmer Abdoulaye Timite. "No farmers are going out to tend the plantations. They ransacked the local Gbagbo party office. They were applauded by the population."
The rebels have this week opened up two fresh military fronts, seizing Bondoukou in the east, near the Ghana border, and Daloa in the west, in an escalation of their offensive. Fighting had so far been limited to Abidjan and the far west.
"They took Daloa and they are circulating everywhere," said Jean Marie Gado, a hotel-owner in the town. "No one is going out, all the shops are shut. The place is like a cemetery."
SHOOTING ON-GOING
Unlike the last war, when French peacekeepers stepped in at Duekoue to stop the rebels advancing on San Pedro, world powers are this time furious with Gbabgo for torpedoing the peace process by rejecting the election results.
All recognise Ouattara as president and diplomats say they are therefore unlikely to hinder the former rebels' advance.
"We have taken both towns. They are in our hands, that's certain. But there is still shooting going on," a military spokesman for Ouattara's forces, Seydou Ouattara, said by phone.
Ouattara remains holed up in a lagoon-side Abidjan hotel.
Pro-Ouattara forces have already seized four towns in the west and Gbagbo's forces fear that if they capture enough, they will be able to march south to the port of San Pedro, which ships about half Ivory Coast's cocoa crop.
The violent stand-off has led to 462 confirmed deaths, according to the United Nations, which is also investigating allegations that 200 African nationals -- from Mali, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Guinea and Togo -- were killed near Guiglo, 20 miles (30 km) southwest of Duekoue.
State television has been whipping up hatred by accusing West African foreigners of being behind the rebellion.
(Reporting by Ange Aboa and Tim Cocks; Writing by Tim Cocks; editing by David Lewis and Giles Elgood)
