New Chad fighting 'crucial' in the battle for control

N'Djamena: Chadian army helicopters and troops loyal to President Idriss Deby struck back at rebels besieging the presidential palace in N'Djamena on Sunday in a second day of clashes after the insurgents pushed into the city.

The helicopters bombed the rebels who, armed with pickup trucks mounted with cannon and machine guns, fought tanks and foot soldiers in a bid to dislodge the president from his heavily-defended palace in the west of the city.

Foreign and local residents in the dusty capital said heavy weapons and machine gun fire erupted before dawn near the palace, not far from two hotels where several hundred foreigners were sheltering. Smoke was also seen rising in the sky.

The rebels, who say Deby is corrupt and dictatorial, battled their way into the capital from the north on Saturday with a column of 300 vehicles after a lightning offensive from the east across the landlocked, oil-producing central African state.

But they appeared unable to take full control of the sprawling city on the banks of the Chari river.

During confused fighting on Saturday, prisoners escaped from a main jail and widespread looting was reported across the city.

French Defence Minister Herve Morin said the new fighting could be "crucial" in the battle for control of the former French colony in central Africa.

The offensive by three rebel commanders has opened up a new conflict next to Sudan's strife-torn Darfur region and the deployment of a European peacekeeping mission in Chad and the Central African Republic has been suspended, Morin said.

Fired

Chadian army helicopters attacked a rebel column near the national radio station headquarters in the capital. They also fired at other rebel vehicles in the city. An army tank defending the entrance to the national radio fired at anyone who showed themselves on the street, a witness said.

"We did not take the airport so as not to hinder the evacuation of foreign nationals and now the French army is letting these helicopters take off and attack us," a rebel spokesman, Abderaman Khoulamallah, said.

The fighting closed in on the airport and forced a temporary halt to the airlift of foreigners. But the French military said a Hercules plane carrying 104 people left yesterday morning in a calm in the unrest.

Flown out

A French foreign ministry statement said 217 French nationals and 297 foreigners had been flown out of N'djamena.

The United Nations said it would evacuate all UN personnel. US embassy staff were taken to the French military base yesterday to be flown out, military sources said.

Sudan on Sunday denied any involvement in fighting in Chad where rebels allegedly backed by Khartoum have besieged the presidential palace in N'djamena. "What's happening in Chad is an internal matter and we have nothing to do with it," state Minister for Foreign Affairs Sammani Al Wassila said.

"We want the situation to calm down and to continue to have good neighbourly relations."