Hundreds of loyalist soldiers withdrew Saturday from the former buffer zone that once split Ivory Coast, and returned to their barracks in the first stage of a nationwide disarmament program expected to last three months, AP reported. Rebels positioned to the north were also expected to pull back, and eventually hand in their weapons to either be integrated into the army or demobilized. «Starting today, you will quit the front lines. There is no more front in Ivory Coast,» President Laurent Gbagbo told soldiers in Tiebissou, a former loyalist-held front-line town about 350 kilometers (215 miles) north of the West African country's main city, Abidjan. Several hundred soldiers climbed into trucks and drove off, headed for a military barracks in the capital, Yamoussoukro. Prime Minister Guillaume Soro, who led the rebellion until a peace deal brokered in neighboring Burkina Faso in March, was also on hand. «This day is important because this day effectively, concretely marks the beginning of disarmament,» Soro said.
