Chadian army under heaviest rebels pressure

Oct 30, 2006 (N’DJAMENA) — After renewed heavy fighting in Chad, both President Idriss Deby Itno’s troops and rebels have claimed a victory, but observers said Monday the government forces were under pressure with big losses.

Defence Minister Bichara Issa Djadallah said the army killed about 100 rebels and lost four men during fighting Sunday near the Sudanese border. He also acknowledged the loss of a senior general staff officer in the battle.

However, a newly merged rebel front claimed it had trapped and killed 215 government soldiers at the cost of 15 men.

The government’s statement said the deputy chief of army staff, General Moussa Sougui, had died in the fighting, which was clearly a blow to the regime after the death in March of General Abakar Youssouf Itno, the army commander and nephew of the president.

Despite the conflicting assertions of military gains after the battle, aid staff and diplomatic observers said Monday that it was evident the fighting was very heavy, six months after a rebel force reached the gates of the capital N’Djamena. That attack in April was fought off.

“Our teams working in the region saw army vehicles driving through full of dead and wounded soldiers, far more than has been officially admitted,” said an official with a humanitarian agency who asked not to be named.

“There were serious casualties on both sides,” a foreign diplomat posted in N’Djamena said.

“Government forces are currently regrouping around Goz Beida,” the rebel’s deputy leader, Acheikh Ibn Oumar, told AFP by satellite telephone on Monday. “We are waiting for them to take the initiative again as a matter of pride.”

Several sources said that calm had returned to the region around Hadjer Meram where the battle took place, in mountainous and sometimes marshy terrain in the far southeast of Chad, around 50km from the Sudanese border.

Insurgency has resumed in the east of the largely arid nation in northern central Africa in the past fortnight, in the wake of a merger of three rebel groups into a single Union of Forces for Development and Democracy (UFDD), led by General Mahamat Nouri.

In N’Djamena, the government had announced further operations against the rebels as of Sunday night.

“Encircled in a zone with no way out, these mercenaries working for Sudan have no way of escaping,” Defence Minister Bichara Issa said, reviving a claim that Sudan is behind the insurgency.

Deby’s government, which has French support, also accused Sudan of backing an assault on the capital in April by the United Front for Change, which is a part of the new rebel front.

Both the Sudanese government and the rebels, who briefly occupied two towns in the east on October 22 and 23, have denied the accusation.

N’Djamena and Khartoum reached a reconciliation agreement in August, but tension has resumed with the new fighting in Chad.

On Saturday the Chadians accused Sudan of using aircraft to bomb four villages on their territory, a charge the Sudanese denied.

France, the former colonial ruler of Chad, has a defence agreement with the country, and a military base on its territory. On October 23, a ground-to-air missile was fired at a French reconnaissance plane over eastern Chad, but did not hit it.

The UFDD rebels admitted firing the missile, but said it had been a mistake as they thought the aircraft was going to attack them.

(AFP)