Divisions among Ivory Coast's former rebels are undermining a movement that controls the northern half of the country as landmark polls appear to slip ever further out of reach.
A post-war presidential election to reunite the world's top cocoa grower was due to take place on Sunday but was indefinitely postponed because millions of voters still need to be registered and fighters on both sides have yet to disarm.
Heavily armed New Forces (FN) soldiers patrolling the bush near the north-western town of Seguela at the weekend accused locals of protecting gunmen who mounted a bloody raid that killed nine people there six days ago.
Rebels blame "bandits" for the attacks but villagers, sick of violence and delays in a peace process after a 2002-2003 war, say the root problem is in-fighting among the New Forces.
"This scares us a lot. It keeps going because they can't agree. There are splits within their ranks," Amadou Toure said as he sat selling cigarettes on a bustling Seguela street. The dissidents were routed by rebels who signed a March 2007 deal meant to guide the country towards the oft-delayed polls.
The clashes follow similar violence in June and July when men loyal to Kone Zakaria, a sacked local commander, temporarily seized Seguela and nearby Vavoua, more than 400 km (250 miles) north-west of the main commercial city Abidjan.
Zakaria was born near Seguela, and residents say some locals still support him although he is in neighbouring Burkina Faso. But the polls have been delayed by a complicated and sensitive process of identifying who is eligible to vote, a question that has been at the heart of Ivorian politics over the last decade and was one of the reasons for the war.