Forces backing Ivory Coast strongman Laurent Gbagbo have injured three soldiers of the UN mission in the country in an attack in the economic capital Abidjan, the UN said yesterday.

Armed forces loyal to Mr Gbagbo ambushed and wounded three peacekeepers late Saturday in the Abidjan district of Abobo, a statement from the UN mission in Ivory Coast said.

“The peacekeepers were on patrol to protect civilians ... when they were shot at in the (district’s so-called) PK-18 area,” it said. “The patrol was forced to retrun the fire.”

The mission said that young Gbagbo supporters had damaged four UN vehicles in Abidjan Friday and Saturday.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Friday warned that Ivory Coast was on the brink of civil war as fighting surged between backers of rival claimants to the presidency.

Police loyal to outgoing President Gbagbo also accused the United Nations mission in the country of killing a police officer in the central town of Daloa on Friday.

The UN mission condemned the violence against it and said “this new escalation of violence and attacks against the mission and its staff are encouraged by the propaganda of President Gbagbo’s supporters, which is based on imaginary facts.”

It warned that attacks against the mission which protects Mr Gbagbo’s rival, internationally recognised winner of the presidential election Alassane Ouattara, “are considered a war crime”.

The spokesmen of Mr Gbagbo’s government and his FDS security forces could not be reached for comment late yesterday.

In a separate development the country’s RTI state television network, which is controlled by Mr Gbagbo, went off the air in Abidjan yesterday after a transmitter was attacked by forces loyal to the strongman overnight, the company said.

Residents reported violent clashes between Mr Gbagbo’s FDS forces and Ouattara loyalists in Abobo where the RTI transmitter is located.

Ivory Coast has been gripped by increasing unrest since a presidential poll on November 28, which much of the international community acknowledges was won by opposition leader Mr Ouattara.