45 Libyan Troops Reportedly Slain in Attacks in North Chad

Libyan forces have launched major ground and air attacks in northwestern Chad against the military forces of a former Chadian president who until recently had been allied with Libya against the Chad government, the official radio here announced. Government sources said Friday that 45 Libyans were reported killed in fierce fighting.

The government of President Hissen Habre has accused the Libyans of using napalm and poison gas in the battle with followers of former President Goukouni Oueddei around Bardai, a town in the foothills of the Tibesti Mountains.

Chad, a former French colony in north-central Africa, has been torn by civil war for nearly 20 years. Libya, its northern neighbor which claims part of northern Chad, has sided with first one Chadian faction and then another.

Habre wrested power from Goukouni in a military campaign in 1982. The next year, Goukouni with Libyan support captured a large area of northern Chad, prompting France to send troops and planes to stop the rebel advance along a defensive “red line” that in effect divided Chad into a rebel-held north and government-controlled south.

Reported Held in Libya

Goukouni, after failing to recapture power, was reported ready to reach a settlement with the N’Djamena government in October when he was put under house arrest in Tripoli, the Libyan capital, and later wounded in fighting with Libyan guards.

Libya has since switched its support to Acheikh ibn Oumar, head of the Democratic Revolutionary Council, one of the main groups in the Libyan-backed Transitional Government of National Union, the coalition to which Goukouni’s forces had belonged.

Oumar was elected president of the coalition last month, and his pro-Libyan followers were said by informed sources to be involved in the latest fighting alongside Libyan troops.

French Help Sought

Habre has appealed to France, which has about 1,200 troops in southern Chad, to help Chad recapture the north from Libya, whose military strength in Chad is estimated by Western intelligence sources at around 8,000 troops.

France has refused, but promised logistical support and fresh arms deliveries.