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From a half-built motorway toll station a 20-minute drive from Abidjan, several hundred troops loyal to Ivory Coast’s Alassane Ouattara prepare for what their commander tells them will be the “final assault” to unseat his rival Laurent Gbagbo.

“It may still take days,” Issiaka Wattao acknowledges to Reuters before he rounds up the troops and leads them towards Abidjan in a convoy of 30 vehicles loaded with soldiers bearing Kalashnikovs. “But we are going to see this through. There is no retreat, no way”.

When the Reuters reporting team arrived, most of the soldiers were either resting or asleep. They have been on the frontline and the hangar of the toll station has become a makeshift base camp to replenish supplies and energy.

The mood is quiet, calm. “Bonne Arrive” “Welcome” is mumbled our way by several as they awaken and start freshening up.

A Toyota pickup arrives with sacks of baguettes, a culinary throwback to Ivory Coast’s days as a French colony. They are eagerly snapped up, with soldiers finally agreeing that it is one baguette between two men.

The armoury on display is surprising for its sheer diversity. Aside from rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) and machineguns, some soldiers carry wooden truncheons and ornate scimitars.

A few wear gris-gris armbands made from animal skins. The amulets are supposedly bringers of good luck. Their function here is specific: to confer an anti-bullet invincibility.

“Are we going to take Abidjan or not?” cries out Wattao.

The shouted answer goes without saying.

“Don’t just shoot anywhere. Don’t go pillaging, that doesn’t help us. It is our country and we are going to save it. Let’s not add to the misery of the Ivorians,” he says before adding: “We are not rebels any more. We are the real army.”

Reuters