Free Republic

Chad's President Idriss Debby has died while visiting troops on the front lines of a fight against northern rebels, an army spokesman said on Tuesday. Deby's death comes just one day after he was declared the winner of a sixth term in office, marking over 30 years in power.

The United States has ordered its non-essential staff in Chad to leave the African country as rebel fighters approached the capital on Sunday after early election results showed President Idriss Deby on course to extend his three-decade rule. Deby, who seized power in 1990 at the head of an armed rebellion, is a staunch ally of France and the United States in the fight against Islamist militants in the arid Sahel region. "Due to their growing proximity to N'Djamena and the possibility for violence in the city, non-essential U.S. government employees have been ordered to leave Chad by commercial airline,"...

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu secured another diplomatic victory for Israel with the dramatic announcement that Chad and the Jewish State would be reestablishing diplomatic relations. The Muslim majority nation had severed ties in 1972 following intense pressure from Libya, its menacing neighbor to the north, which at the time was led by the dictator, Col. Muammar Qaddafi. But following a visit by Chad’s President Idriss Déby to Jerusalem and a reciprocating visit by PM Netanyahu to N’Djamena, forty-seven years of animosity instantly vanished. Israel’s historic diplomatic achievement occurred despite intense efforts by the Palestinian Authority and Iran to torpedo the...

As the Clinton-led State Department dragged its feet against Boko Haram, Clinton Foundation donors made millions from Nigerian oil fields The attacks on Jan. 20, 2012, began not so much as an explosion but as an earthquake. ....In coordinated bombings at 23 separate locations in the city of Kano, including police headquarters and military barracks, the group left one of Africa’s largest cities in disarray and panic. The January attacks killed more than 185 people—Africa’s worst terrorism since the 1998 al-Qaeda attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. ...Boko Haram often showed up better equipped than the Nigerian military...prominently...

President Idriss Deby of Chad said on Wednesday he knew the whereabouts of Abubakar Shekau, the leader of the Nigerian militant group Boko Haram, and called on him to surrender or risk being killed. Chad's army has waged a series of battles against Boko Haram as part of a cross-border military campaign and has re-taken territory the militant group held in northeastern Nigeria. ... The Chadian army is considered one of the best in the region, backed by a strong air force. It first deployed to help Cameroon fend off Boko Haram and is now pressing southwest into Nigerian territory...

Islamic SocialismFrom the CIA factbook: Following a 1969 military coup, Col. Muammar Abu Minyar al-QADHAFI began to espouse his own political system, the Third Universal Theory. The system was a combination of socialism and Islam derived in part from tribal practices and was supposed to be implemented by the Libyan people themselves in a unique form of "direct democracy.[1] The "Green Book" - Arabism, Islam & socialism, with Islam the main line Author John L. Esposito: Under Qaddafi three interrelated ideas were woven into Libya's ideological identity: Pan-Arabism, socialism, and Islam. Qaddafi's appeals to Islam were influenced by his...

Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi is well known now for the abuses he has inflicted on his own people during more than four decades of brutal rule in Libya, but few remember the vast campaign of carnage and terrorism he orchestrated across West Africa and Europe when he was at the height of his powers. Nor are his more recent alliance with Hugo Chávez of Venezuela and his long-standing relationship with Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua -- both of whom are busy trampling their constitutions and moving toward dictatorship -- well understood. And the fact that all three governments support the Revolutionary Armed...

N'DJAMENA, April 13 (Reuters) - Residents of Chad's capital N'Djamena were woken by the sound of artillery fire early on Thursday as government forces battled to keep rebels bent on overthrowing President Idriss Deby out of the city. A Reuters reporter living in a southern neighbourhood said the noise of heavy weapons could be heard coming from a few kilometres (miles) outside the city. "Everyone is up, wondering what is going to happen," he said. One resident reported seeing a column of smoke.