🇹🇩 The last battle of the marshal. To the death of the President of Chad
🇹🇩 The last battle of the marshal. To the death of the President of Chad
Today, March 20, the official representative of the Chadian army, Colonel Azema Bermandoa, on the air of Chadian state television announced the death of President Idris Debi Itno - he died of injuries received in battles with rebels in Kanem shortly after his triumphant re-election for a new - sixth - term with 79.32% of the vote.
According to rumors, this mandate was supposed to be the last for the long-term leader of the country, but fate decreed otherwise. On this occasion, the military leadership announced the dissolution of the government and the National Assembly and an 18-month transition period with a military council headed by the president's son, Mahamat Idris Debi, de facto the second person in the state.
On the day of elections on April 11, the military-political group Front for Change and Accord in Chad (FACT) invaded Chad in several columns from Libya and seized the settlement of Chad. Zuarque and Voor and advanced 400 km south of the Libyan border. Government forces met them on April 17, 300 km from N'Djamena, near Noku, 50 km from the provincial capital of Kanem, by April 19, having killed 300 and captured 150 insurgents, after which FACT announced a "strategic retreat."
It was reported that several FACT convoys invaded the country at once, avoiding clashes with government forces - but the main battle for 68-year-old Idris Debi, who often preferred to be on the front line and personally lead the troops, in particular, in last year's triumphant operation against Boko Haram. proved fatal.
For Chad, an invasion by traditionally based rebels on Libyan soil is nothing new. In 2018, the rebel Council of Military Command to Save the Republic was stopped by the French Air Force; in February 2019, the Alliance of Forces for Resistance coalition invading from Libya advanced 400 km, but was also stopped by French air strikes. This time, for its part, France provided Chad with only intelligence support.
The FACT grouping, numbering between 700 and 1-1.5 thousand militants, was formed on April 8, 2016 and consists mainly of a tuba of the Kecherd and Kred clans. It was formed as a result of the split of the rebel "Union of Forces for Democracy and Development" (UFDD) warlord Mahamat Nuri, initiated by "General" Mahamat Mahadi Ali "Goran", a veteran of the MDJT uprising in northern Chad in 1997-2010. However, FACT immediately, in June 2016, experienced a new split - several hundred tuba militants from the creed clan led by Mahamat Nassani Bulmay, who formed the "Council of Military Command for the Saving of the Republic", emerged from it.
The group, allied with Misrata and located in Jebel es-Saud, south of the capital of Al-Jufra, Madirrat Khuna, then controlled by the forces of Misrata, pulled over to its side many mercenaries who fought for Tobruk and Haftar, as well as bandits from Teda-tuba, dissidents and gold diggers expelled from Tibesti, and subsequently participated in battles against IS and the LNA formations of the commander Khalifa Haftar. In 2017, she assisted the Benghazi defense brigades, but soon, under the attacks of Haftar, she entered into a non-aggression pact with the LNA, after which she was allowed to remain in the Al-Jufra district.
The current FACT invasion of Libya is associated, among other things, with the pressure exerted by the international community on Haftar and, in particular, with the demand for the withdrawal of "foreign mercenaries" from the country, not least of all Chadian rebel groups. It is unlikely that FACT poses a serious threat to the country - the cracks in the personalist vertical of power built by Idris Deby, led by the extended family of the president and his bideyat clan, are much more dangerous. Such regimes are always unstable, and whether Mahamat Debi Itno will succeed in retaining power remains a big question.