Ivorian Police Arrest 12 People After Attack On Military Base

A dozen people have been arrested after a military base near Ivory Coast’s economic capital of Abidjan was attacked last week, state radio said on Monday.

“The 12 suspected attackers were arrested following an inquiry” led by the gendarmerie, a police force under the orders of the defence ministry, Ivorian Radio Television (RTI) said on its website.

Armed men attacked the base of N’dotre, north of Abidjan, on the night of April 21.

A soldier was wounded while three assailants were killed and a fourth injured.

A passport and driving licence issued by neighbouring Liberia were found on two of the dead, according to the authorities.

Liberia on Friday strongly condemned the attack and vowed to prevent any incursions from its territory.

Security experts have long warned that the jihadist campaign in the Sahel, which sprang up in northern Mali in 2012 before advancing into Niger and Burkina Faso, could spread into countries on the coast of the Gulf of Guinea.

On March 29, suspected Islamists killed three members of the security forces on the northern border with jihadist-torn Burkina Faso.

Three “terrorists” were killed and four were arrested in the two attacks, the army said.

On April 12, a gendarmerie vehicle travelling in the same area was hit by an  improvised explosive device, but without suffering any casualties, in the first known IED attack on Ivorian soil.

In June 2020, 14 soldiers were killed in a nighttime attack on the Burkinabe border that was attributed to jihadists.

In 2016, 19 people were killed, including Westerners, when jihadists attacked the tourist resort of Grand-Bassam near Abidjan.

-AFP