In coup attempt in Chad, rebels swarm capital

Libya’s official news agency said rebels have agreed to a cease-fire.

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Hundreds of rebels charged into Chad’s capital aboard pickup trucks Saturday, clashing with government troops around the presidential palace in the most forceful attempt yet to oust President Idriss Deby. The rebels claimed to gain strength from defecting soldiers in the oil-rich Central African nation.

Libya’s official news agency JANA, a mouthpiece for the government, reported that Chadian rebel leader Mahamat Nouri agreed to a cease-fire Saturday night after speaking to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, who was appointed by the African Union to mediate in the crisis.

There was no immediate way to verify the report with the rebels or the Chadian government.

The violence endangered a $300 million global aid operation supporting millions of people in the former French colony and also delayed the deployment of the European Union’s peacekeeping mission to both Chad and neighboring Central African Republic.

The rebels arrived after a three-day push across the desert from the eastern border with Sudan in about 250 pickups with mounted submachine guns.

The rebels gathered outside N’Djamena overnight before 1,000 to 1,500 fighters entered early Saturday and spread through the city, said Col. Thierry Burkhard, a French military spokesman.

Government forces were pushing rebels away from N’Djamena, he said late Saturday. “It appears clear that President Deby succeeded in containing them at his palace and is even in the process of pushing them back,” Burkhard said.

A bomb hit the residence of the Saudi ambassador to Chad, killing the wife and daughter of an embassy staffer taking shelter from the fighting, according to a Saudi Foreign Ministry statement.

Chad’s ambassador in Ethiopia, Cherif Mahamat Zene, told The Associated Press “the situation is under control.

A spokesman for the biggest rebel group told the AP that its forces had surrounded the presidential palace and claimed that government soldiers were defecting.

Chad, a French colony until 1960, has been convulsed by civil wars and invasions since independence, and the recent discovery of oil has only increased the intensity of the struggle for power.