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Chad rebels attack key town, army withdraws
N’DJAMENA - Chadian rebels attacked the eastern regional capital of Abeche on Saturday in their latest strike against President Idriss Deby’s rule, but government forces said they had withdrawn and surrounded the town. Chad’s chief of staff said in a statement it had pulled troops back from Abeche, which is located 160 km (100 miles) from the border with Sudan, to prevent civilian casualties after the early morning attack by several armed convoys.
Run a-wwwwway!
The town lies on the main road to the Chadian capital, N’Djamena, some 600 km (375 miles) to the west. Hundreds of people were killed in April when rebel columns reached N’Djamena after a lighting raid across the arid central African oil-producer. ‘The town of Abeche had been attacked by mercenaries in the pay of Khartoum,’ read a statement signed by General Adoum Gabgalia, deputy head of the chiefs of staff. ‘In order to spare civilian lives, the Chadian armed forces have deployed all around the town of Abeche.’
In other words, they got pushed out.
A stream of wounded troops, from both government and rebel forces, began arriving at hospitals in the dusty town and looters took to the streets, ransacking shops after the government troops pulled out, diplomats and aid workers said.

‘The situation is currently calm. The rebels remain in town,’ Claire Bourgeois, head of the United Nation’s refugee agency (UNHCR) in eastern Chad, told France’s RFI radio. ‘Humanitarian workers are not in danger.’

The French military, which has forces stationed in Abeche under a defence cooperation accord with the government, was bringing its citizens to its base, diplomats said. ‘The French have secured the air base and all flights have been grounded,’ said one foreign diplomat, adding the Chadian army barracks had been plundered.
No French participated in the defense of the town. Some 'defense cooperation' accord.
Diplomats said the Chadian military appeared to have pulled back toward Oum-Hadjer, some 120 km on the road toward N’Djamena.

Diplomats said they believed the latest attack from the east was being carried out by rebels of the anti-Deby coalition, Union of Forces for Democracy and Development (UFDD). Eastern Chad, where UNHCR runs camps for thousands of refugees from Sudan’s Darfur and for displaced Chadians, has descended into lawlessness due to frequent rebel attacks and incursions by Janjaweed militia from across the border.

France, which stations some Mirage fighters at its Abeche base, has in the past backed the Deby government against the rebels with logistics and intelligence support.
Posted by: Steve White 2006-11-26
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=173117