Ivory Coast back to work after attack on Guei

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast (Reuters) -- Abidjan, the main city of Ivory Coast, returned to normal on Tuesday after a day of high tension following a reported assassination attempt against military ruler General Robert Guei.

Buses and taxis were circulating normally and most of the road blocks that sealed off sections of the central Plateau administrative district on Monday were gone, though there were more armed soldiers on guard than usual.

The area around Guei's residence just outside the center, which officials said was attacked by some 20 armed men in the early hours of Monday, was still sealed off.

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Access to the state radio and television stations was still restricted, as it has been since the coup that brought Guei to power in December.

Guei said that two of his bodyguards were killed in Monday's attack. Military sources have put the total death toll on both sides at 10. Several wounded soldiers remain in hospital.

The motives of the attackers, who according to one minister included some of Guei's own guards, remained unclear.

One of Ivory Coast's few independent dailies, Soir Info, tentatively raised doubts about the official version of events.

In particular, it wondered how the assailants were able to get past the formidable security around Guei's house -- especially after the authorities had got wind of an assassination attempt, as Guei himself told reporters on Monday.

"It can be one of two things -- either Guei's guard is infiltrated to such an extent that he only owes his survival to chance, or, as the entourage of (opposition leader) Alassane Ouattara believes, General Guei wanted to set this whole thing up to give him an excuse to crack down," Soir Info said.

Sections of the military, notably elements close to former premier Ouattara, are known to be unhappy with Guei's decision to run for president in an election due in October.

Guei said at the time of the December coup that he was not interested in political power.

The coup was sparked by an army pay dispute and came after months of ethnic tension, whipped up in part by ousted President Henri Konan Bedie. He sought to turn the country against Ouattara, whose nationality has been in dispute.

A new constitution approved by Guei tightened eligibility criteria for presidential candidates, requiring them to be Ivorian and to prove that their parents were Ivorian. The constitution was approved by a landslide in a referendum.

The move was widely seen as a strike against Ouattara, whose opponents say is a national of northern neighbor Burkina Faso.

Ouattara, who draws much of his support from the Moslem north, says he is Ivorian and can prove it.

The authorities are believed to have arrested between 20 and 26 of Monday's alleged attackers. Many have names common in the north.

"Some young military people were more or less invited by certain people who are known to me to make an attempt on my life," Guei told a news conference on Monday.

He declined to say who these "certain people" were, but colleagues of Ouattara said it was clear that his Rally of the Republicans (RDR) was targeted.

"They (the military junta) are going to turn the violence against us," said party spokesman Aly Coulibaly, who denied it was linked to the attack.

Several alleged attackers were shown on state television on Monday being whipped with pieces of rope as soldiers loaded them into a truck. Three of them, their faces bruised, protested their innocence, and one said he was not even at the presidency when the raid started.

"They called me to say there was something happening at the presidency -- that soldiers were shooting," he said. The next thing he knew, he was a suspect under arrest.

Guei said that a presidential election, the first of several polls to restore civilian rule, would go ahead as planned on October 22. Rumors persist that it might be postponed.

Until the December coup, the first since independence from France in 1960, Ivory Coast was a rare haven of stability in a violent, volatile part of West Africa.

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