ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast (AP) – A plane carrying Ivory Coast’s prime minister came under heavy gunfire as it landed Friday at an airport in a northern region dominated by rebels allied with the leader, spokesmen for the minister said.

Prime Minister Guillaume Soro was not harmed and was taken to a safe place, said Alain Lobognon, who was traveling with Soro. But three people were killed by the force of the landing, spokesmen for Soro said.

“You heard the sound of heavy explosions and then several volleys of shots,” Sidiki Konate, another Soro spokesman who was with him on the plane, told French radio. “Many were also injured seriously. The prime minister was unhurt,” he said.

Lobognon confirmed three were killed in the landing at Bouake airport, roughly 250 miles from the main city, Abidjan.

Soro, an ex-rebel leader, became prime minister in April following the signing of a peace deal between his New Forces rebels and the government. Following a brief civil war in 2002, Ivory Coast was divided into a rebel-controlled north and a government-ruled south.

Friday’s attack could set back the country’s nascent peace deal, brokered earlier this year in neighboring Burkina Faso. Under the accord, Soro joined in a government with his former enemy, President Laurent Gbagbo.

Before becoming prime minister, Soro had headed the New Forces rebels from Bouake, while Gbagbo governed the south.

About 9,000 U.N. troops and 3,500 French soldiers are deployed in Ivory Coast to ward off all-out civil war. Many used to patrol the giant buffer zone that runs east to west, dividing the country in half.

Since the signing of the peace deal on March 4, Ivorians have begun dismantling the buffer zone, and international peacekeepers were preparing to leave.

The world’s largest cocoa producer has embraced a series of peace deals in recent years, but so far none have taken hold. The most recent, known as the Ouagadougou accord after the capital of Burkina Faso where it was signed, has been seen as the most promising.

AP-ES-06-29-07 1055EDT