Gunmen launched a pre-dawn raid on a military camp in Ivory Coast's commercial capital Abidjan on Monday, the country's prime minister said.

A group of heavily armed assailants in civilian clothes stormed the army camp in the Akouedo neighbourhood, on the eastern edge of the city, at around 3.30 in the morning, an officer present at the base told Reuters.

Fighting lasted nearly three hours before the army took back control of the area. Local residents saw ambulances travelling towards the camp, however details concerning possible casualties were not immediately available.

"Individuals tried to take the new camp in Akouedo by surprise. The prompt reaction of our forces put down the attack," Guillaume Soro, the president of parliament, stated on Twitter.

"(Our soldiers) are currently carrying out clean-up operations. The situation is under control," he said.

The attack comes just a day after a similar raid on a police station and a military checkpoint killed five soldiers in Abidjan's Yopougon neighbourhood.

The West African nation, the world's top cocoa grower, is emerging from a decade of political deadlock and civil unrest that ended with a brief post-election civil war last year that killed around 3,000 people.