Chad Says It Routed Libyans and Killed 400

Government troops fighting alongside former rebels Sunday killed 400 Libyan soldiers and recaptured the town of Bardai in northern Chad, the state-controlled radio said.

Libya, however, denied involvement in the fighting in northern Chad, where about 5,000 Libyan troops are reported to be trying to dislodge Chadian rebel forces who have made peace with the 1311196266Libya’s occupation.

Libya’s news agency, quoting a “responsible source” in the Foreign Ministry, said Sunday that Libya had “nothing to do with the conflict in Chad” but warned that it will attack if its “security and territorial integrity” are threatened.

Chad radio said that a force of former rebels and government troops killed 400 Libyans, captured an undisclosed number of others and destroyed 17 tanks in Bardai, the administrative center of the Tibesti region. It said that only one government soldier was killed.

There was no independent confirmation of the report.

Chad radio reported Saturday that Libya had mounted a major attack backed by tanks and warplanes on Bardai, Zouar and Wour in the Tibesti region, about 600 miles north of the capital of N’Djamena.

In Washington, a State Department spokeswoman said she had no information on the reports of fighting. But the New York Times reported Sunday that U.S. intelligence sources verified Chadian accounts of the Libyan attack.

Libya has controlled northern Chad since 1983, when Col. Moammar Kadafi’s troops aided Chadian rebels in an invasion of the area that split the north-central African nation into a Libyan-controlled north and a government-controlled south.