Rebels have recaptured the key town of Man in northwestern Ivory Coast, military sources say, overshadowing renewed regional and French efforts to end three months of fighting in the country.
The rebel splinter group Ivorian Popular Movement for the Far West (MPIGO) recaptured Man, an important coffee centre near the world's top cocoa growing area, late on Wednesday after a day of intense fighting, the military sources said.
Civilian officials in the main town in the west confirmed the rebels were in control on Thursday.
"The situation in Man is under our control," added MPIGO spokesman Guillaume Prosper Gbatto.
Man, some 650 km (400 miles) northwest of the main city Abidjan, was the scene of heavy fighting earlier this month when loyalist troops pushed the rebels out of the town.
The fighting in Man has cast a shadow over peace efforts by West African leaders who agreed late on Wednesday to send a force to Ivory Coast by the end of the year.
France has also stepped in to try to stop the fighting, sending its biggest African intervention force since the 1980s to what was once its star West African former colony.
On Wednesday, Paris dispatched a ship carrying 300 troops as well as armoured vehicles and transport helicopters, which will take its force in Ivory Coast to between 2,300 and 2,500.
French troops have orders to shoot anyone breaking a shaky ceasefire between the government and the main northern-based rebel group, which launched its revolt three months ago.
But two new rebel groups in the west say they are not bound by the ceasefire, and have vowed to fight on.
Liberian fighters have joined the latest upsurge of fighting in the west of the country, raising fears the conflict could degenerate and lead one of Africa's top economic powers down the same anarchic route as nearby Liberia and Sierra Leone, devastated by interlocking civil wars in the 1990s.
That fear spurred regional bloc ECOWAS to stage a series of emergency summits of West African leaders, who agreed on Wednesday to deploy a force in Ivory Coast by the end of the year, urging the United Nations and the African Union to help.
The ECOWAS force, expected to number over 1,600, was due to deploy last month but was delayed by a leadership dispute.
Ivory Coast's conflict has its roots in growing polarisation between northern Muslims and southern Christians, exacerbated by massive immigration in recent decades and a 1999 coup.
France is eager to host a peace summit in Paris, but the rebels accuse it of siding with President Laurent Gbagbo - who has his stronghold in the Christian and animist south and west.