A Côte d’Ivoire rebel group said on Sunday they had arrested a New Zealand man allegedly hired to kill its leaders, as well as 35 militiamen who were planning an offensive against the group.
The alleged mercenary, holder of a New Zealand passport with the name Brian Hamish Sands, was arrested on Friday after arriving in Bouake, in the centre of the rebel held north of the country, from Abidjan, the New Forces (FN) said in a statement.
The man was apparently carrying an address book with the telephone numbers of members of the government forces, leaders of the ruling Côte d’Ivoire Popular Front party and mercenary recruitment companies, which had also been involved in several other African countries including Sierra Leone, the FN said.
He also had a GPS satellite navigation system, a bullet proof vest and maps, and admitted to having contacted certain ”people within the Ivorian presidency” since he arrived in Abidjan in mid-February.
The group said the man’s objective — who said he had belonged to the French Foreign Legion from 1986 to 1994 — was to ”kill political and military leaders” of the FN.
In a separate operation the FN arrested 35 militiamen from a group close to Côte d’Ivoire president Laurent Gbagbo on Thursday in the Logouale region in the north-west of the country and who were said to have been waiting for a later offensive on the rebel positions.
The news of the arrests is the latest indication of a deteriorating situation in the West African state, roiled by a low-level civil war for most of the last two and a half years.
The FN said on Thursday they were gearing up for an imminent return to hostilities in the divided country following an attack last month on one of their positions at Logouale in the west of the world’s top cocoa producer.
A little-known group known as MILOCI, led by evangelist Pastor Gammi, claimed responsibility for this attack which he said was the first in an expected series of aggressions to liberate zones that have been under rebel control since a failed coup in September 2002.
The rebels have declared all mediation in the crisis over and blasted the international community for its failure to react to the ”massive deployment of troops and military equipment” by the government on the front lines.
Côte d’Ivoire has been divided along tribal and religious lines since a failed coup attempt of September 2002 against Gbagbo, and a ceasefire signed the next year is being monitored by troops from former colonial power France together with a UN peacekeeping mission. – Sapa-AFP