French forces sent to evacuate some 300 foreigners from a rebel-held city in northern Ivory Coast at dawn today briefly exchanged fire with renegade soldiers.
Lieutenant Colonel Ange-Antoine Leccia said that as a French helicopters secured the airport of Korhogo, an opposition stronghold in the mainly Muslim north, "two or three mutineers fired shots" at the aircraft.
"They took fright because we arrived a little earlier than expected, around five forty-five instead of six ," he said by satellite phone from Korhogo.
"The helicopters fired back with 7.62 mm machineguns and they caused the mutineers to run away. It's a minor accident,"
Some 320 Westerners and dual-nationals were being airlifted to safety by French and US troops after an 11-day military uprising in the world's top cocoa producer.
