Chad fights back against Sudan sponsored rebels

Reuters:

Chadian troops loyal to President Idriss Deby struck back at rebels besieging his palace on Sunday and the government said it repulsed an attack by Sudanese forces in the east that it called "a declaration of war."

In the capital N'Djamena, government helicopters and tanks defended Idriss Deby's fortified presidential complex against rebels in pickup trucks mounted with cannon and machine guns who stormed into the city on Saturday.

On Chad's far eastern frontier with Sudan's war-ravished Darfur region, the army said it had beaten back a ground and air attack against the border town of Adre by a mixed force of Sudanese army troops and allied rebels and militia.

Deby's Minister of State for Mines and Energy, Gen. Mahamat Ali Abdallah Nassour, called the attack on Adre "a declaration of war" by Sudan, in comments to Radio France International.

Sudan's government denied the accusations from its neighbor that it had backed the offensive by an alliance of Chadian insurgent groups, who denounce Deby as corrupt and dictatorial.

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Chadian officials blamed Sudan for the fighting, saying Khartoum was trying to sabotage the imminent deployment of a European Union peacekeeping force to eastern Chad that is tasked with protecting thousands of refugees and aid workers.

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Chad was named the most corrupt country in the world, along with Bangladesh, in Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index for 2005.

That is quite a distinction when there are so many other African countries in competition for that title. Still the Chad version of the fighting rings more true than the one from Sudan.

The BBC reports that the fighting will make it more difficult to reach peace in Darfur, which is probably the Sudanese motivation for sponsoring this campaign.

There are few good guys in this fight, but Sudan is a clear bad guy in any fight.