Chad to enter Sudan within hours to root out rebels
Sudan on Wednesday threatened to destroy Chadian forces if they invaded its territory after Chad said its armed forces would enter Sudan "in the coming hours" to intercept an alleged planned new rebel assault around its eastern border.
Sudan denied Chadian rebels were gathering inside its borders for an assault and urged Chad not to go through with its threatened raid but stressed it was ready for any incursion.
The Sudanese Ministry of Defense pointed out it will not tolerate any aggression on the Sudanese lands, and warned that the Armed Forces will destroy any force that attempts to attack the Sudanese territories," the Suna state media agency reported.
Tensions between the two oil-producing nations have escalated in recent days, with Chad on Sunday confirming its air force had carried out cross-border raids on what it called Sudanese-backed rebels.
The Chadian government went on to admit launching air attacks inside Sudan in a bid to wipe out rebel camps.
"This new situation will prompt us in the coming hours to pass across the border to deal with these pockets of mercenaries," Chad’s minister of state for infrastructure said in a statement.
"We have asked our troops to deploy and those units which are due to intervene are in the process of gathering around these sites … The Chadian government will use its right of pursuit," Younousmi added.
Heightened tensions
Khartoum, which denied backing the rebels, has up to now made relatively restrained public statements, referring only to unspecified repercussions of any Chadian attack and signaling that it was still seeking a diplomatic resolution.
In another sign of heightened tensions in the remote region, United Nations sources said they had unconfirmed reports Sudanese army planes bombed land close to the Chad border in north Darfur on Monday and Tuesday, the site of recent clashes between Khartoum and Darfur rebels.
The sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there were also reports from the area that rebel forces had fired back, using anti-aircraft guns.
No one was immediately available to comment from Darfur’s rebel Justice and Equality Movement, which says it is holding the key town of Kornoi in the area, or the Sudanese armed forces.
Khartoum says N’Djamena arms and supports JEM, one of two main Darfur rebel groups that launched a rebellion against the Sudanese government in 2003.