Crisis
Gaddafi, judging the time to be ripe for a decisive offensive, ordered a massive joint GUNT-Libyan attack against Faya-Largeau, the main government stronghold in northern Chad, during June 1983. The fall of the city on June 24 generated a crisis in Franco-Libyan relations, with the French Foreign Minister Claude Cheysson announcing that day that France "would not remain indifferent" to Libya's intervention in Chad.
The 3,000 man-strong GUNT force continued its advance towards Koro Toro, Oum Chalouba and Abéché, the main city in eastern Chad, which fell on July 8. These victories gave Goukouni and Gaddafi control of the main routes from the north to N'Djamena, and also severing Habré's supply line to Sudan.
As the rebels advanced, with poorly-concealed assistance from Libya, Habré appealed for international help. Rejecting direct intervention and downplaying the Libyan role, France was prepared to go no further than airlifting arms and fuel, with the first French arms shipments arriving on June 27. On July 3, Zaire flew in a detachment of 250 paratroopers, eventually raised to about 2,000 men. Deployed chiefly around N'Djamena, the Zaireans freed Chadian troops to fight the rebels. The United States further announced that 25 million US dollars in military and food aid would be provided. Thus assisted, and taking advantage of the GUNT's overextended supply line, Habré took personal command of the Chadian National Armed Forces (FANT) and drove Goukouni's army out of Abéché four days after the city's fall. FANT recaptured Faya-Largeau on July 30 and went on to retake other points in the north.
Read more about this topic: Operation Manta
Famous quotes containing the word crisis:
“Tennis is more than just a sport. It’s an art, like the ballet. Or like a performance in the theater. When I step on the court I feel like Anna Pavlova. Or like Adelina Patti. Or even like Sarah Bernhardt. I see the footlights in front of me. I hear the whisperings of the audience. I feel an icy shudder. Win or die! Now or never! It’s the crisis of my life.”
—Bill Tilden (1893–1953)
“When you give power to an executive you do not know who will be filling that position when the time of crisis comes.”
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961)
“It is necessary to turn political crisis into armed crisis by performing violent actions that will force those in power to transform the military situation into a political situation. That will alienate the masses, who, from then on, will revolt against the army and the police and blame them for this state of things.”
—Carlos Marighella (d. 1969)