The sudden offensive by Chadian rebels on 31 January came as no surprise to observers of the region. For well over a year Chad’s president, Idriss Deby, has been involved in a proxy war conducted by guerrillas with Sudan’s president, Omar al-Bashir. But with January’s rebel attacks, the war came into the open.
On Monday 28 January a column of 250 pick-ups carrying 2,000 fighters set off from their base in Hajil in western Darfur (Sudan). According to witnesses, the invasion was directly coordinated by the Sudanese defence minister, General Abd-er-Rahim Mohamed Hussein. On 1 February at the battle of al-Massaqit, 80km northeast of Chad’s capital, N’Djamena, they fought off a counter-offensive from the Chadian National Army (ANT). The next morning the rebels reached the capital and besieged the main public buildings, including the presidential palace, where Deby was trapped. On February 3 the ANT regained control of the city after two days of fighting.
The reasons for the rebel failure were military: they were over-confident that Deby’s regime was crumbling and launched their attack with inadequate forces (too few men, no artillery, few anti-tank weapons and no surface-to-air missiles), so the ANT was able to take full advantage of its modest military superiority. They had three Mil Mi-24 helicopters piloted by Ukrainian mercenaries and around 20 old Russian T-55 tanks. The rebels, who lost two-thirds of their vehicles and between 200 and 300 men, withdrew from the capital and regrouped 80km away to wait for reinforcements and fresh supplies of fuel and ammunition. A further force of around 2,500 men set off from Sudan. To stop them, Deby made an appeal to the Sudanese rebel force, the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM). A large JEM force crossed the border into Chad to try to prevent rebel reinforcements reaching N’Djamena. In the battle near Adré on 4 February the Sudanese air force entered Chad’s airspace to attack the JEM forces. (…)
