Days after Ivory Coast's reconciliation government held its first full meeting, hailed as "a major step in restoring peace" after seven months of war, government troops and rebels on Saturday reported fresh fighting in the west.

"On Friday April 18 at 4:45 pm, the towns of Binhouye, Toulepleu, Para, in the Tai region, were the target of violent attacks launched by rebels from MPIGO and MJP," said army spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Aka N'Goran, referring to two rebel groups active in western Ivory Coast.

Although the main rebel group, the Ivory Coast Patriotic Movement (MPCI) denied that any of the country's three insurgencies were involved in the fighting, the head of the Ivorian People's Movement of the Far West (MPIGO), a secondary rebel group that emerged in the west in November, confirmed the clashes.

MPIGO leader Felix Doh told AFP in Paris by satellite phone that his troops had routed Ivorian army soldiers near Toulepleu.

"I recaptured two villages and entered Toulepleu. We killed at least 300, and among them, I saw the bodihursday of the unity government, set up under a French-brokered peace pact reached in January, and including rebels, President Laurent Gbagbo's party and the political opposition.

In a statement issued after the meeting, Gbagbo praised the government's first cabinet session as "the first major step towards a return to peace."

It would be followed by the re-establishment of the government's authority throughout Ivory Coast, divided into rebel and pro-Gbagbo camps since the conflict bepro-Gbagbo troops of launching attacks using combat helicopters on insurgent-held towns.

The contrast was stark between the government meeting in Abidjan and the statements issued afterwards, in which the rebels and Gbagbo's backers were spoken of as one, united government, and the fresh combat on the ground, in wn government forces because "they are no longer using Mi-24 combat helicopters, since these were banned by the United Nations."

"Without the helicopters, they are amateurs. I'm better than they are," he boasted.

The rebels this week accused government forces of launching five attacks against towns under their control, mainly in western Ivory Coast, with Mi-24 combat helicopters. At least 16 civilians died in the attacks, the rebels said.

On Friday, the head of the French peacekeeping operation, General Emmanuel Beth, condemned the use of helicopter gunships in fighting in France's former star west African colony.

"The attacks... by combat helicopters are scandalous and disastrous, and I am certain, from a military point of view, that they are ineffective," Beth, who is also military adviser to a committee following-up a peace pact reached in January, told AFP.

The attacks "have no place whatsoever in the reconciliation process that is under way and I hope that, following the recommendations of the follow-up committee, which asked for the helicopters to be grounded, and the recommendations of the UN Security 4o ncil, that these regretable incidents will not be repeated," Beth said.

The UN Security Coud the helicopters before peace talks began in France in January, and on Thursday, the new government urged all sides to the seven-month conflict to stop fighting.

"We have been asked to ground our helicopters, but our patience has its limits and, given the turn of events in this war, we will soon be obliged to launch limited attacks on military targets," N'Goran warned.

Doh, meanwhile, summarised the weariness most Ivorians feel after months of war.

"It's a pity, all this fighting and all these deaths, even as we are taking part in a government of reconciliation," he said.

"We need peace in this country."