محمد نور اصغر رئيس في القاره الافريقية

Quote: Chad declares victory over rebel column Thursday, April 13, 2006; Posted: 9:32 a.m. EDT (13:32 GMT) Chadian President Idriss Deby CHAD'S REBEL MOVEMENTS Here are key details about some of Chad's rebel movements. -- In December 2005, the Rally for Democracy and Liberty (RDL), attacked the border town of Adre. Its leader, Mahamat Nour, is from the eastern Chadian Tama tribe, a tribe which also spans the border into Darfur. It's a small African tribe but has powerful historical alliances with Chad's Arab tribes. -- Nour's RDL group has several camps along the Chad-Sudan border and in Darfur. They have an estimated 5,000 loyal troops. -- Following the attack on Adre, Abdoulaye Abdel Karim, spokesman for the RDL, said an alliance of eight anti-Deby groups, including one formed by Chadian army deserters, was created during a December 26-28 meeting at Modeina in eastern Chad. The new United Front for Democratic Change (FUC) agreed in a joint communique to pool manpower and weapons to "free Chad of the dictatorship of Idriss Deby." -- Later another group joined the FUC to make it nine. -- Mahamat Nour is the FUC president. It is FUC forces which say they made Thursday's attack on N'Djamena. -- Yaya Dillo Djerou is leader of another group calling itself Platform for Change, National Unity and Democracy whose French acronym is SCUD. SCUD rebelled against Deby in September 2005. SCUD was formed by army deserters and is led by members of Deby's own Zaghawa clan, one of the main Darfur rebel tribes. -- Early in 2006 the SCUD split from the FUC. -- In March, the government launched an army offensive against the rebels one week after it announced it had foiled a coup plot against Deby. The offensive targeted not just SCUD, but also the anti-Deby RPJ (Popular Rally for Justice) led by another high-level defector, Abakar Tollimi. -- Starting on April 9, FUC forces launched a spate of hit-and-run attacks in the east, southeast and center of Chad, culminating in the strike on the capital. -- Reuters YOUR E-MAIL ALERTS Idriss Deby or Create Your Own Manage Alerts | What Is This? N'DJAMENA, Chad (AP) -- Rebels and government forces battled with attack helicopters, tanks and heavy weapons in Chad's capital Thursday, and President Idriss Deby later declared he had fought off the second attempt to overthrow him in a month. The pre-dawn attack on N'djamena demonstrated how little control Deby has outside his capital in a tumultuous part of the world where rebel groups cruise across the desert at will. In three days, rebels from the United Front for Change drove 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) in pickups from their bases on the border with Sudan's troubled Darfur region and launched the major attack with just weeks to go before presidential elections. Troops were waiting on the outskirts of the capital. Within hours, Deby declared victory on state-run radio and declared the rebel column destroyed. Rebel forces were not immediately available for comment. Few in the country were assured that the fight for control of Chad was over. Scores of defectors from the Chadian army have joined rebel groups since October in their bid to overthrow Deby, who himself seized power in a 1990 coup and has seen his authority undermined by violence in neighboring Sudan and an apparent struggle for control of newly discovered oil reserves in Chad. The troubles in Chad have revived fears that the Darfur conflict could undermine the entire region. On March 14, dissident troops attempted to overthrow Deby. Loyalist forces arrested more than 100 people for their alleged involvement in the attempted coup, which took place while Deby was out of the country. Chad, an arid, landlocked country about three times the size of France, has been wracked by violence for most of its history, with more than 30 years of civil war since independence from France in 1960 and different small-scale insurgencies since 1998. Chad accuses neighboring Sudan of backing the latest rebellion, a charge Sudan rejects. Sudan backed Deby in his 1990 rebellion against former President Hissene Habre, but relations between Deby and Sudan have cooled. Many observers see the new rebellion as a direct result of the fighting in Darfur, from where more than 200,000 refugees fled and sought protection in Chad. The Sudanese government has accused Chad of supporting the Darfur rebels, while Deby has sought to mediate in the stalled Darfur peace process. Rights groups have said Chadian and Sudanese militias in Darfur have launched frequent cross-border raids, killing Chadian civilians. Deby has been accused by Chadians of doing too little to help Sudanese in Darfur who share ethnic links with many Chadians. Deby said on state-radio Thursday that the men who attacked the capital were mercenaries paid by Sudan to overthrow him before he can hold elections May 3. The path to power in Chad via Darfur is something Deby knows well. He launched his 1990 rebellion from Darfur. Thursday's fighting began before dawn, with residents in eastern neighborhoods waking to heavy gunfire. Later, Chadian attack helicopters fired rockets at rebel positions around the capital and tank fire and mortar rounds echoed through the city as government troops attempted to hold off the rebels. An Associated Press reporter saw the bodies of three rebels in the streets of N'djamena, and residents reported seeing many other corpses in the streets. A government spokesman said he did not immediately have a death toll. France sent 150 troops Wednesday to bolster its contingent of about 1,200 already in Chad to protect about 1,500 French citizens there, the French Defense Ministry said in a statement in Paris. The French Defense Ministry said French fighter jets carried out reconnaissance missions over Chad Wednesday and Thursday to assess any threats and better protect French citizens in Chad. Col. Gerard Dubois, a spokesman for the French military, strongly denied French radio reports that French military fighters allegedly carried out bombardments in eastern Chad, causing victims among civilians. "The situation in Chad remains very worrying and volatile," French Foreign Ministry spokesman Jean-Baptiste Mattei said Thursday. He said French citizens had been advised to be very cautious and the French school in Chad had been closed. Chad and its former colonial ruler remain close, and France is a strong supporter of Deby. France also backed Deby's predecessor, Habre, including during an invasion by Libya. France has a cooperation agreement with Chad, but a special decision would be needed for French forces to enter combat. Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

(عدل بواسطة ELSUNNI on 04-13-2006, 09:55 AM)