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TIEBISSOU, Ivory Coast (AP) - Hundreds of government soldiers withdrew Saturday from a vast buffer zone dividing Ivory Coast, the first stage of a long-delayed nationwide disarmament program.
Rebels also pulled back, and were eventually to hand in their weapons and 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 215 miles north of the West African country's main city, Abidjan.
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