Ivory Coast abuses may amount to war crimes: HRW

ABIDJAN (Reuters) - Security forces and militias loyal to Ivory Coast's Laurent Gbagbo have committed atrocities on an organised scale that may constitute war crimes, Human Rights Watch said.

These acts include rape, executions and burning West African immigrants to death, the monitoring group said in a report released late on Tuesday.

"It's an organised pattern of attacks on West Africans," HRW researcher Corinne Dufka told Reuters.

The world's top cocoa grower has been locked in violent turmoil since a disputed November election between Gbagbo and his rival Alassane Ouattara, widely recognised as the winner.

The HRW report lambasted gunmen claiming allegiance to Ouattara -- who have taken over parts of north Abidjan in the past three weeks -- for summary executions of 11 pro-Gbagbo troops captured since they rose up against the incumbent.

Neither side was immediately available for comment.

The report said Gbagbo's "Young Patriots", often armed youths who have set up roadblocks, had carried out a series of ethnically motivated killings since a call by their leader Charles Ble Goude to fight the rebellion late