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Chad official accuses Sudan army of helping rebels

By DANY PADIRE,Associated Press Writer AP - Wednesday, June 18

N'DJAMENA, Chad - A Chadian minister on Tuesday accused the Sudanese army of assisting rebels in an attack on an army post in eastern Chad, an allegation Sudan denied and that was bound to complicate already tense relations between the neighbors.

Mahamat Hissene, Chad's communications minister, alleged that Sudanese troops backed by two army helicopters on Tuesday helped the rebels attack the post in Bakout, about 470 miles east of the capital, N'Djamena.

The allegations could not be independently verified and the Sudanese government denied the charges.

Hissene told The Associated Press that one Chadian army vehicle was destroyed, but he did not know if the fighting in Bakout continued.

"The Chadian army's reaction will be similar to the arrogance shown by the Sudanese regime," Hissene said in a statement.

Sudan described the accusations as "unfounded and detached from the truth" and not the first of their kind.

Sudanese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Ali Sadiq, told the state news agency that any time Chadian rebels had any success, the Chadian government "complains that Sudan is behind it."

Last month, Sudan broke diplomatic relations with Chad, accusing its neighbor of backing an attack near the Sudanese capital by the Darfur-based Justice and Equality Movement rebel group. Chad in turn closed its border with Sudan and halted bilateral trade.

In a televised national address on state-owned television late Monday, Chadian President Idriss Deby accused the international community of leaving Chad to face the rebel attacks alone.

In reference to the most recent rebel attacks that began six days ago, Deby claimed the European Union's force in eastern Chad did nothing to prevent the rebels, "seizing vehicles belonging to aid agencies, burning the stocks of food and fuel and closing their eyes to a program of massacring civilians and refugees."

The EU force's spokesman in Chad declined to comment on Deby's statement.

The EU is deploying 3,700 troops, including 2,200 French soldiers, to help protect 300,000 Sudanese refugees and 187,000 Chadians uprooted by conflict in eastern Chad and neighboring Sudan's Darfur.

The past week's rebel offensives have drawn strong international condemnation.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, the Security Council and the African Union Commission on Monday condemned the attacks.

In February, rebels reached the edge of the presidential palace in N'Djamena after driving for days on back routes all the way from eastern Chad. The army later repulsed them out of N'Djamena and back to the eastern border.

The Red Cross said that more than 160 people were killed and 1,000 wounded in the fighting in February.

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Associated Press Writer Sarah El Deeb contributed to this report from Khartoum, Sudan.

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