Chadian President Idriss Déby Itno on Saturday threatened to pursue and strike Chadian rebels inside neighbouring Sudan and repeated charges that Khartoum was trying to destabilise his country.
Déby claimed his forces had already driven out the rebels from Chad and said: ”We’re going to destroy them in their nest inside Sudan.
”We’re going to make them eat dust inside Sudan,” he added at a support rally in Ndjamena.
Rebels and government forces clashed violently in eastern Chad between November 26 and December 4, scuttling October peace accords signed in Libya.
The rebels have since claimed to have reorganised — with support from Khartoum, observers say.
Rebels also acknowledge that the majority of their forces are massed on the Sudanese side of the border.
Already strained for years, ties between Chad and Sudan have eroded further since the clashes erupted. The two countries have engaged most recently in trading accusations of aggression and supporting each others’ rebel movements.
Déby said on Saturday his government would examine shortly whether to cut diplomatic ties with Khartoum, whose leader he accused of trying to destabilise Chad and ”install a doctrine based on terrorism and militant Islam”.
On Tuesday, Sudan’s military claimed eight of its soldiers were killed and 19 wounded in clashes with rebels backed by Chadian troops in Darfur, just across Chad’s border.
And last week, Sudan said Chadian forces had carried out an air and ground assault in Darfur, charges strongly denied by Ndjamena.
For its part, Chad claimed last week that Khartoum was preparing a ”new aggression” against its neighbour to prevent the deployment of a European Union peacekeeping force in eastern Chad and a joint African Union-United Nations mission in Darfur. — Sapa-AFP