Reports from Ivory Coast say fighting has resumed in the central city of Daloa, a day after government forces re-took most of it from rebel troops.

Witnesses reported heavy shooting and explosions.

President Laurent Gbagbo has issued an ultimatum to the mutinous soldiers who have been controlling the northern half of the country for more than three weeks.

Mr Gbagbo, who was speaking on state television, said the government would put an end to the uprising in a week, either by talking or by fighting.

There are numerous reports that Angolan troops and equipment are supporting the Ivorian army.

However the Angolan interior minister has denied sending troops to Ivory Coast.

On Monday, Mr Gbagbo said that the army had received new supplies, which it had been waiting for, but did not say where they had come from.

Daloa, which is in the heart of the cocoa-producing region, was seized by rebels on Sunday.

Daloa residents told the French news agency AFP on Tuesday that loyalist forces had gained a foothold in Daloa on Tuesday morning, but had not yet succeeded in wresting total control from the rebels.

Rebel reinforcements

The residents of Daloa were told to stay indoors by government soldiers who said the fighting could resume later on Tuesday.

Rebel reinforcements left for Daloa early on Tuesday, according to Master Sergeant "Dosso", who said he was in charge of operations in Korhogo.

Reuters reported that smashed and burned vehicles littered the scene of heavy fighting near the centre of Daloa on Tuesday morning.

One witness told AFP that 11 rebels had been killed during the fighting on Monday, and that the government had suffered more casualties than the rebels.

"It was the Angolans who cleaned up this sector," a resident, Londry Tagro, told Reuters news agency.

"We know that it was the Angolans because of their special combat uniforms and because they are much fitter than our men."

A Reuters correspondent in Daloa said that some of the soldiers on the pickup trucks cruising Daloa's streets wore battle-dress that was clearly different from that of the Ivorian forces.

Cocoa high

Thousands have fled the fighting

Ivory Coast is the world's largest producer of cocoa - the raw material for chocolate - and the month-long crisis has sent prices to near 17-year highs.

A spokesman for the World Food Programme in Abidjan, Ramin Rafiramse, told the BBC that the families whose livelihood depends on cocoa will not have any income in the coming months.

The WFP has warned that the situation could degenerate to the level of the Great Lakes region, where millions have died in conflicts in Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Burundi.