Chad: The rebels announced that they killed 10 soldiers

In an announcement that its members killed ten soldiers and captured eight others, a rebel organization in Chad which resists the military regime.

The Council of Military Command for the Salvation of the Republic (Conseil de commandement militaire pour le salut de la République, CCMSR), a major faction rebels which refused to sign a peace deal with the military junta in early August, announced that on Friday, an “advanced” force “of the Djamena army attacked our positions in the community of Bouri,” in Timbesti district, near the border with Libya.

“The fearless freedom fighters put the army to flight”according to the announcement of the organization, which assured that ten soldiers were killed and another eight captured.

On his part, Abdraman Kulamala, the Minister of Communications and government spokesman for the military junta, stated that “it has been more than a week since there was an intrusion of about twenty rebel vehicles into the country”, but “there has been no conflict with the government forces”.

“We are monitoring the convoys with aircraft and they left Chadian territory several days ago,” Mr Koulamala continued, calling the CCMSR announcement “fake news”.

Timbesti is a historically turbulent region, the cradle of several major armed uprisings after Chad gained independence from France in 1960. After veins of gold were discovered there in 2012, mining in the province attracted traders, thousands of gold miners, the military and members of Chad’s armed opposition and of Sudan, who seek to secure revenue from the precious metal, mainly to finance their equipment.

The CCMSR also accused France in its announcement of overflights over its positions by “planes of the Barchan mission” and warned that “any bombing” would mean a “declaration of war against French interests”.

The Council was born in June 2016, from the split of the Front for Change and Unity in Chad (FACT), the rebel organization that launched from Libyan territory an attack that killed in April 2021 the president Idriss Deby Itno.

The rebel group withdrew in April from talks being held in Doha, the capital of Qatar, between the military regime and about 40 rebel factions, denouncing the “hidden agenda” of the authorities in Djamena.

In April 2021, the day after the announcement of the death of Idris Debi Itno’s father, Mahamat Idris Debi Itno took the reins of the country in his hands, head of the Military Transitional Council, which consists of 15 generals, all loyal to the former president, who exercised power with an iron fist for 30 years in the African state.

He promised to hold “free and democratic” elections within an 18-month deadline, potentially renewable once. Since August 20, a dialogue has been held between opposition political factions and the military junta.