ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast (AP) — Forces loyal to Ivory Coast's elected president ended the 10-year rule of strongman Laurent Gbagbo on Monday, storming the bunker where he had holed up and putting him under arrest following a crisis that left hundreds dead and threatened to re-ignite a civil war.
Gbagbo's dramatic arrest came after days of heavy fighting during which French and U.N. helicopters fired rockets at his presidential residence. Forces backing the internationally recognized winner Alassane Ouattara had begun a rapid offensive to oust Gbagbo late last month.
Issard Soumahro, a pro-Ouattara fighter at the scene, told The Associated Press that the ground offensive to seize Gbagbo came after the French launched airstrikes until at least 3 a.m. Monday.
"We attacked and forced in a part of the bunker. He was there with his wife and his son," Soumahro said.
He added that Gbagbo was tired and had been slapped by a soldier, but was not otherwise hurt.
Gbagbo was interrogated and brought to the Golf Hotel, where Ouattara has been trying to run his presidency since the Nov. 28 vote. Officials were waiting for him to sign a document that formally hands power over to Ouattara, Soumahro said. TV footage from the Golf Hotel showed Gbagbo in a white sleeveless undershirt, and then donning a colorful print shirt.
"The nightmare is over for the people of Ivory Coast," Ivory Coast's U.N. ambassador said.
Youssoufou Bamba, who was appointed U.N. ambassador by Ouattara, said Gbagbo will face justice. He predicted that fighting that has wracked this former French colony will stop as soon as pro-Gbagbo forces learn of his capture.
But it will be very difficult for Ivory Coast to mount a domestic court to try Gbagbo, said Richard Downie, an Africa expert at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, adding that it would "probably be a lightning rod for more unrest."
"(Ouattara) didn't want to come to power this way, through the barrel of a gun," Downie said. "He was elected fairly and freely. But this is the situation he was dealt. It's going to be incredibly difficult for him to bring the country together."
In western Ivory Coast, rebels fired into the air in jubilation in Duekoue, causing a panic among refugees who fled in all directions or dropped to the ground in terror. In villages going east from Duekoue people danced in the streets, waving tree branches. In one village, young men paraded with the orange, white and green Ivorian flag.
"It's a victory ... considering all the evil that Laurent Gbagbo inflicted on Ivory Coast," Ouattara's ambassador to France, Ali Coulibaly, told France-Info radio. He emphasized that the man in power for a decade would be "treated with humanity."
"We must not in any way make a royal gift to Laurent Gbagbo in making him a martyr," Coulibaly said. "He must be alive and he must answer for the crimes against humanity that he committed."
Some critics had accused Gbagbo of clinging to power in part to avoid prosecution by the International Criminal Court. ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo has begun preliminary examination of possible war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ivory Coast, including accusations leveled against forces seeking to install Ouattara.
Ivory Coast was divided into a rebel-controlled north and a loyalist south by a 2002-2003 civil war. The country was officially reunited in a 2007 peace deal. The long-delayed presidential election was intended to help reunify the nation but instead unleashed months of violence.