(Corrects Web site address in paragraph 8)

By Samuel Elijah

COTONOU, Dec 29 (Reuters) - Benin has ordered a former Ivory Coast rebel leader to leave, accusing him of breaking the terms of his exile by plotting to derail a peace process to reunite his homeland after a 2002-03 civil war, a minister said.

Benin's Interior Minister Felix Hessou said in a statement Ibrahim Coulibaly had been plotting to derail peace efforts in Ivory Coast, which this year has seen rebel and government sides commit to disarmament and elections due to take place in 2008.

Former rebels in Ivory Coast said supporters of Coulibaly, who founded the rebel movement before he was usurped by current prime minister Guillaume Soro, were behind a gun attack on a military patrol in their stronghold Bouake late on Thursday.

Hessou said press reports from Ivory Coast indicated Coulibaly's right-hand men were involved in both this week's attack and an attack on Soro's plane last June.

He said Coulibaly, known as "IB", had violated an agreement forbidding him from "subversive or political activity" and was "reportedly destabilising the peace process under way in the Republic of Ivory Coast".

Coulibaly has been living in Benin's main city Cotonou. There was no indication on Saturday he had left the country.

Ivory Coast government spokesman Amadou Coulibaly, a senior member of the ex-rebel New Forces, said the government had no details on Coulibaly's return beyond press reports.

An article on Coulibaly's Web site www.ibrahim-coulibaly.com quoted an aide as saying he would return to Ivory Coast this year to contest the presidential election due next year.

Government spokesman Coulibaly, also a minister in a power-sharing government, said that if Ibrahim Coulibaly had been plotting to destabilise the country, he would be prosecuted.

Since the attack, the New Forces have increased patrols on in Bouake, where the movement has its political headquarters.

Residents in the area of Thursday night's attack said they heard no shots, calling into question the New Forces account.

Over 20 people were killed in 2004 in fighting between supporters of Coulibaly and Soro after a failed assassination attempt on Soro which the New Forces blamed on Coulibaly's men.

Coulibaly, who lived in Paris before moving to Benin, was one of a group of soldiers who ousted former President Henri Konan Bedie on Christmas Eve, 1999 -- starting a spiral of instability in the resource-rich country. (Additional reporting and writing by Peter Murphy in Abidjan; editing by Alistair Thomson)

AlertNet news is provided by