DAKAR, Senegal — The battle for Ivory Coast’s presidency neared a decisive phase on Thursday as opposition forces reached the outskirts of Abidjan, the country’s commercial center, news agencies reported, and Laurent Gbagbo’s army chief fled his post.
The army chief of staff, Gen. Phillippe Mangou, sought refuge for himself, his wife and five children in the home of the South African ambassador in Abidjan on Thursday, the South African Department of International Relations said in a statement.
His flight appeared to deal a significant blow to Mr. Gbagbo, whose forces have crumbled from east to west in the West African nation. A string of cities, including the strategic cocoa exporting city of San Pedro, have fallen to forces loyal to Mr. Gbagbo’s rival, Alassane Ouattara, as they have swooped south toward Abidjan, the crucial stake in what has now become an open war for the presidency in Francophone Africa’s former economic leader.
Spokesmen for Mr. Ouattara, the man recognized internationally as the winner of elections last November, said the taking of the administrative capital, Yamoussoukro, on Wednesday had been accomplished with hardly a shot fired.
“It was like butter,” said the spokesman for Mr. Ouattara’s military, Capt. Léon Alla, who added that there had been gunfire exchanges in a town just to the north, shortly before the descent of the Ouattara forces into the capital.
On Thursday, The Associated Press said that Mr. Ouattara’s forces had begun besieging Abidjan from the outside as supporters within the city attacked a prison and freed its inmates. The city is divided neighborhood by neighborhood between supporters of Mr. Ouattara and Mr. Gbagbo’s loyalists.
By late afternoon on Wednesday, Mr. Ouattara’s troops were patrolling the streets of Yamoussoukro to welcoming greetings and celebratory gunfire from citizens, two residents there said. Meanwhile, Mr. Ouattara’s prime minister, Guillaume Soro, delivered an ultimatum to Mr. Gbagbo on French radio and television, saying he had only “several hours” to give up power.
The capture of Yamoussoukro was mostly a symbolic victory for Mr. Gbagbo’s opponents, as the country’s government and economy operate from the commercial capital, Abidjan. Still, Yamoussoukro, with a population of some 200,000, has resonance for Ivorians. It was both the birthplace and the brainchild of the country’s founder, Félix Houphouët-Boigny, who led Ivory Coast to independence in 1960.
Mr. Houphouët-Boigny built a giant basilica there, and Mr. Gbagbo has continued his policy of designing grandiose projects for what had been a simple village until recent times. Capturing the city showed a clear rebel advance on Mr. Gbagbo’s terrain. “If they can do this today, it’s really tough for Gbagbo,” said Rinaldo Depagne, an Ivory Coast specialist with International Crisis Group’s West Africa office said Wednesday. “It’s the second city, the city of the founding father.”
There was further evidence of deteriorating conditions in the country on Wednesday. Residents reported gunfire exchanges, and the French government said its ambassador’s motorcade had been fired on by Mr. Gbagbo’s forces, “suggesting once more that Laurent Gbagbo no longer respects anything, that he is pursuing his policy of blind violence, and that he doesn’t hesitate to threaten human life, Ivorian and foreign alike,” a statement from the French foreign ministry said.
The next stage is likely to be the toughest of a four-month fight by Mr. Ouattara to accede to office after the elections last November. While a series of strategic towns in the cocoa belt have fallen with surprising ease this week to Mr. Ouattara’s forces — with several reports of Gbagbo forces giving up, surrendering or simply shedding their uniforms — the taking of Abidjan is likely to be much more difficult.
A sprawling metropolis of some four million in normal times — though as many as a million have already fled, according to the United Nations — the core of Mr. Gbagbo’s resistance is concentrated there. Some analysts are predicting that he will not give it up without a bloody fight.
“I think there will be a battle for Abidjan,” Mr. Depagne said.
Mr. Ouattara’s camp on Wednesday sought to minimize such talk, however, in an apparent bid to accelerate the military defections that have already occurred.
“I don’t think there will be a fight,” Captain Alla said. “The barracks are deserted. We’re asking our brothers-in-arms not to expose their lives.” But he added a warning: “For those who think their lives depend on defending Mr. Gbagbo, they will realize the consequences.”
In Yamoussoukro there was hardly a fight, Captain Alla and others said, with most of the Gbagbo forces quickly surrendering.
“The Republican forces took it without a fight,” said Ousmane Diallo, a local journalist, speaking from Yamoussoukro on Wednesday afternoon. “We’ve just seen the soldiers, and they are patrolling the city, to the applause of the population,” Mr. Diallo said. “There were no deaths at Yamoussoukro,” he added.
He said the Ouattara forces had offered to immediately enlist Mr. Gbagbo’s soldiers — an offer many of them accepted, he said.
“The Republican Forces have been received with joy,” said Ahmed Timité, another resident reached by phone. Mr. Gbagbo’s forces, he said, “simply fled. They took off. There was no contest.”
J. David Goodman contributed reporting from New York.
