In Dakar on Saturday, rebel army swarmed the capital of Chad, and gun battles erupted around the presidential palace, according to Chadian and western officials, in an attack that raised the specter of deeper chaos in one of the most war-scarred and fragile regions of the world.
The attack was from a coalition of three rebel groups that have taken shelter in the Sudan for the past few years who entered the capital, Ndjamena, early on Saturday after days of battle outside of the city. The Chadian officials said that the stealth nature of the coalition took the military guards by surprise.
The rebels were “able to infiltrate the capital, panic the population, fire at the presidency, and give the impression there is fighting going on at the presidency”, said Mr. Mahamoud Adam Bechir, Chad’s Washington Ambassador. He continued to state that everything is under control and that the president is in the palace and that Chadian military forces are chasing the insurgents.
He said that the airport had been closed to civilian flights and cell phone networks had been shut down to try to hamper rebel communication lines.
Gabriel Stauring, an American anti-genocide activist was among some 50 people pinned down in a luxury hotel in the capital that came under heavy fire. In an email message, Mr. Stauring said that French military forces had exchanged heavy fire with the rebels outside the hotel. “Bullets flew over our heads and parts of the walls and objects around us came raining down on us,” he wrote.
These events further exemplify that the crisis in the region is far from over. Sudanese refugees have fled into Chad and ethnic cleansing continues in a truly complex and complicated issue.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/03/world/africa/03chad.html?_r=1&ref=africa&oref=slogin
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