Libyan Use of Napalm in Chad Reported

The Libyan army and air force attacked pro-government forces with napalm and toxic gas in northern Chad on Monday, the Chadian government said.

The renewed effort to dislodge pro-government fighters from their Tibesti mountain strongholds in and around Bardai, 400 miles north of N’Djamena, came after the Libyans suffered what Chad’s government and Western diplomats said was a major defeat in the area over the weekend.

Chad’s report spoke of casualties among both Chadian fighters and civilians in the new battles said to be raging in the remote and desolate mountains, but it gave no figures.

There was no independent account of the new fighting.

U.S., France Aid Chad

The United States and France are helping Chad, a landlocked and impoverished former French colony in North Africa, to resist a military incursion from neighboring Libya while they avoid direct combat with the Libyans. Over the years, Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi has backed various rebel commanders against Chad’s central government.

Khamis Togoi, spokesman for President Hissen Habre, told reporters that a supply column of 50 vehicles from N’Djamena got through to positions held by the pro-government forces, which are loyal to former President Goukouni Oueddei. However, Western military intelligence sources expressed doubt about the reported arrival of the supply column.

Goukouni, the longtime leader of a Libyan-sponsored rebel government in northern Chad, was ousted by other guerrilla leaders in October and took most of his estimated 3,000 veteran mountain fighters into an alliance with Habre, his former enemy. Goukouni is in Tripoli, Libya, under virtual house arrest.

Onslaught Resumed

A Chadian government communique said that three columns of “Libyan aggressor forces,” each of about 800 men, resumed their onslaught on Goukouni’s men at mid-morning Monday, “in their despair deploying intensive napalm bombing and toxic gas against the population of Zouar and the surrounding mountains.”

The Libyans “used their planes and artillery in this savage manner, destroying patriotic forces and the civilian population in the area . . . because they lost command of the situation on the ground,” the communique said. It did not give a casualty figure.

Chad had earlier reported that 400 Libyan regular troops were killed Saturday when they attacked Goukouni’s former rebel center at Bardai. The Libyans suffered heavy losses in weapons and equipment, it said.

Western military analysts confirmed the Libyan defeat, but they estimated the number of Libyan dead at about 100.

Libyans Ambushed

Bardai, on a flat oasis in the heart of the Tibesti region, is surrounded by high mountains. The only access is through narrow mountain passes where the Libyans apparently were ambushed.

The Zouar outpost is in the foothills 80 miles south of Bardai. Goukouni’s forces there apparently fled before a Libyan onslaught Saturday and went into the surrounding hills, taking up positions overlooking the outpost, and it was there that the Libyans were said to have attacked with poison gas and napalm bombs.

The communique did not clarify the situation at Wour, 70 miles west of Bardai, where Goukouni’s men also were said to have been driven into the hills.

The Chadian radio’s news bulletins referred to Goukouni’s forces--previously described as “the lackeys of Libyan aggression” --as the “patriotic armed forces.”

Togoi, commenting on Goukouni’s switch of sides, said, “For the first time, almost all Chadians are united against the Libyan aggression.”

The Reagan Administration announced last week it would send $15 million worth of emergency military equipment to Chad to help thwart Libyan attacks.

Diplomatic sources said the first U.S. Air Force Galaxy transport plane carrying this equipment landed at N’Djamena Airport on Monday.