Chadian rebels plan offensive within days, leader says

Dec 22, 2005 (EL-GENEINA) — Chadian rebels said on Thursday they planned an offensive to try to oust President Idriss Deby, who vowed to resist and pursue them in neighboring Sudan if necessary.

Mohamed Nour, president of the recently formed rebel group, Rally for Democracy and Liberty (RDL), told Reuters in a telephone interview that an attack by his forces on a Chadian border town last Sunday was a purely tactical move.

“We only used less then one sixth of our troops in that attack,” he said in his first interview since the fighting over the town of Adre on Chad’s eastern border with Sudan.

Chad’s government says it is firmly in control of Adre, and Deby, who has dismissed the rebels as “adventurers”, visited the town on Thursday to rally its inhabitants and government troops.

Nour said a major rebel attack would happen “probably in the coming few days”, but declined to say where. “It could even be on N’Djamena,” Nour said, referring to the Chadian capital.

In his visit to Adre, Deby accused Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir’s government of directing Sunday’s rebel assault on the town.

“Chad’s national army has received orders to defend our border but also to use its right of pursuit to catch inside Sudanese territory any attacker who harms Chad,” he told a rally in the town’s main square.

The fighting over Adre has raised tensions in the neighboring region of Darfur where Sudanese rebels have fought Sudan’s central government for almost three years.

CROSS BORDER

The Chadian government says its army pursued the RDL forces over the border into Sudan and destroyed their bases there. It accused Sudan of supporting the attackers and said about 300 of them were killed.

The rebels said they had only lost nine men and that two others were missing, adding more than 70 government troops were killed in the battle.

In his speech in Adre, Deby called on the international community to condemn what he called Sudan’s attempt to “export the war in Darfur to Chad”.

He also said the African Union, due to hold a summit in Sudan’s capital Khartoum next month, should not allow al-Bashir to become the next chairman of the continental body.

Chad’s government on Thursday urged the U.N. Security Council to help stop the conflict in Darfur and the border region from spreading.

Nour, 35, said RDL was formed four months ago and had bases in Darfur. He is from the Tama tribe, which spans both sides of the border, and took part in the rebellion which ousted Hissene Habre as president and brought Deby to power in 1990.

But he said Deby had become corrupt and worse than Habre while in power, so he decided to move into armed opposition.

Deby, a former army chief, has been credited with bringing a measure of stability to Africa’s newest oil producer, although he has long had a tense relationship with the military.

The international community is showing growing concern about the fighting in eastern Chad and Darfur, where mainly non-Arab rebels launched an uprising in early 2003, accusing Sudan’s government of monopolizing wealth and power.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed and more than 2 million forced from their homes during the violence in Darfur.

(Reuters)