Word: libyans
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...arrival of some 1,000 French paratroopers. Though the French soldiers were ostensibly in Chad as "instructors," the fact was that there were already half as many French troops in the country as there were soldiers in the Chadian army. The French buildup was a warning to Libyan Leader Muammar Gaddafi, whose intervention in behalf of Rebel Leader Goukouni Oueddei had threatened to topple the government of President Hissene Habré. The message: Libya should not move its forces any farther south in the direction of the Chadian capital of N'Djamena. What had started two months...
...Congo People's Republic, ten African heads of state called for a cease-fire in Chad. In N'Djamena, PresidentHabré did not rule out the possibility of holding talks with Gaddafi but said he would never negotiate with his archrival Goukouni, whom he described as a "Libyan mercenary." Gaddafi, in turn, held a press conference in Tunisia at which he brazenly denied that there were any Libyan troops in Chad...
Many government soldiers who escaped the final assault of the Libyan and rebel forces on Faya-Largeau were fleeing across the desert toward the eastern town of Abéché and the capital city of N'Djamena, 400 miles to the southwest. Evidence of the scale and intensity of the Libyan air raids could be seen in N'Djamena's public hospital, to which some 140 soldiers had been brought. They had been flown out of Faya-Largeau at night when government forces could still use the town's unpaved airstrip. Evacuation of the injured...
Whether the French presence will be sufficient to create a stalemate in the seven-week-old war will depend on what Gaddafi does next. Western intelligence sources put the number of Libyan troops in Chad at 2,500, while Goukouni has perhaps 3,000 men in his ragtag army. But those combined ground forces are backed by aircraft and heavy weapons, including as many as 400 tanks and armored vehicles on the outskirts of Faya-Largeau, which the government of Chad is unable to match. The Libyan air force has a base for its fighters in the Aozou Strip...
...other hand, a Libyan ground offensive would be extremely difficult to carry out; the roads are bad in the best of times and impassable in heavy rain. The hope of most Western observers in N'Djamena is that Gaddafi will be content to occupy the northern third of Chad and press for a new Chadian government that would be more to his liking. In a television interview late last week, Gaddafi blandly denied that he was providing the Chadian rebels with anything but "moral" support, and called for negotiations between the rival forces in Chad...