Chad’s President Idriss Déby has died of his injuries following clashes with rebels in the north of the country at the weekend, the army has announced.
The announcement came a day after provisional election results projected he would win a sixth term in office.
The government and parliament have been dissolved. A curfew has also been imposed and the borders have been shut.
Idriss Déby, 68, spent more than three decades in power and was one of Africa’s longest-serving leaders.
An army officer by training, he came to power in 1990 through an armed uprising. He was a long-time ally of France and other Western powers in the battle against jihadist groups in the Sahel region of Africa.
Idriss Déby “breathed his last defending the sovereign nation on the battlefield”, an army general said on state TV on April 20.
He had gone to the front line, several hundred miles north of the capital N’Djamena, at the weekend to visit troops battling rebels belonging to a group calling itself FACT (the Front for Change and Concord in Chad).
A military council led by Idriss Déby’s son, a 37-year-old four star general, will govern for the next 18 months.
Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno will lead the council but “free and democratic” elections will be held once the transition period is over, the army said in its statement.
Ahead of the election on April 11, Idriss Déby campaigned on a platform of bringing peace and security to the region.
But there has been growing unhappiness over his government’s management of Chad’s oil resources.
Founded in 2016 by disillusioned former army officers, the rebel Fact group accuses President Déby of repression in the run-up to the election.
They built up their base in Libya in the Tibesti mountains, which straddle northern Chad and part of southern Libya.
On Election Day the group mounted an attack on a border post and gradually advanced on N’Djamena.
The latest clashes began on April 17. An army general told Reuters that 300 insurgents were killed and 150 were captured. Five government soldiers were killed and 36 were injured, he said. The figures could not immediately be verified.
Some foreign embassies in the capital have urged their staff to leave.
N’Djamena has come under rebel attack before and there was panic in the city on April 19, with parents taking their children home from school, when tanks were deployed along the main roads.
Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a top Islamist militant, has been killed by Chadian soldiers in Mali, Chad’s armed forces have announced.
His death was announced on Chadian state television but has not been confirmed by other sources.
Mokhtar Belmokhtar is a former al-Qaeda leader said to have ordered January’s attack on an Algerian gas plant where at least 37 hostages were killed.
Chadian troops are fighting Islamist militants in Mali as part of an international force led by France.
“Chadian forces in Mali completely destroyed the main jihadist base in the Adrar de Ifhogas mountains… killing several terrorists including leader Mokhtar Belmokhtar,” the army statement on Chadian TV said.
Weapons, equipment and 60 vehicles were seized, it added.
If confirmed, Mokhtar Belmokhtar’s death would be a major blow to Islamist militants in Mali.
Mokhtar Belmokhtar is a former al-Qaeda leader said to have ordered January’s attack on an Algerian gas plant where at least 37 hostages were killed
Reports of the killing came a day after Chadian President Idriss Deby said the country’s forces killed al-Qaeda militant Abdelhamid Abou Zeid during clashes in northern Mali.
Abdelhamid Abou Zeid – whose death is still to be confirmed by DNA evidence – is said to be second-in-command of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), which is fighting foreign forces in Mali.
Algerian-born Mokhtar Belmokhtar has been fighting as an Islamist militant for more than two decades.
He claimed to have received military training in Afghanistan before returning to Algeria, where he lost an eye fighting in the Islamist insurgency in the 1990s.
Mokhtar Belmokhtar then joined AQIM – which operates across the Sahara – before breaking off to lead his own group.
He is also known as “Mr. Malboro” because of his alleged role in cigarette smuggling in the region.
Senior al-Qaeda militant Abdelhamid Abou Zeid has been killed in northern Mali, Chadian President Idriss Deby has announced.
Idriss Deby said Chadian forces killed Abdelhamid Abou Zeid during clashes in the remote region.
Abdelhamid Abou Zeid is said to be second-in-command of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, which is fighting foreign forces in Mali.
The Algerian national is accused of killing two Western hostages – Briton Edwin Dyer in 2009 and Frenchman Michel Germaneau the following year.
His death will immediately raise questions over the state of several French hostages who are widely believed to have been in Abdelhamid Abou Zeid’s custody.
In January France sent some 3,500 troops to northern Mali to oust various Islamist militant groups who had seized a vast area of the Sahara desert.
Chad is one of several African countries to have supported the French operation.
After recapturing the region’s main towns, French and Chadian troops have been battling Islamist fighters in the Adrar des Ifoghas mountains north of Kidal, where the militants had regrouped, in recent weeks.
Senior al-Qaeda militant Abdelhamid Abou Zeid has been killed in northern Mali, Chadian President Idriss Deby has announced
Algeria’s Ennahar TV reported earlier this week that Abdelhamid Abou Zeid was among 40 militants killed in the area near the Algerian border.
“Chadian forces killed two jihadi leaders, including Abou Zeid,” Idriss Deby said on Friday, without giving any further details.
President Idriss Deby was speaking after the funerals of Chadian soldiers killed in the fighting.
Algerian media have reported that security operatives have taken DNA samples from two of Abdelhamid Abou Zeid’s relatives to compare with the body which is reportedly his.
A US official – speaking on condition of anonymity – said Washington found reports that Abdelhamid Abou Zeid was killed “very credible”, according to the AFP news agency.
However, France reacted with caution to the reports, with government spokeswoman Najat Vallaud-Belkacem stressing that his death was so far unconfirmed.
Earlier unverified reports in the French media said that the militant was killed during fighting against French army units.
Abdelhamid Abou Zeid – believed to be in his 40s – was known as the most violent al-Qaeda commander in the region.
He was last seen in public in the Malian cities of Timbuktu and Gao seized by Islamist groups last year.
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