The government of Chad said on Thursday that a bizarre attack on the presidential palace had been repelled, with 18 of the attackers and one Chadian soldier killed in the process.
“The situation is completely under control. There is no fear,” Foreign Minister Abderaman Koualmallah said from inside the presidential palace after order was restored. He said President Mahamat Deby Itno was in the palace when the overnight attack occurred but he did not suffer any harm.
Rumors spread after the attack that Islamist terrorists like Boko Haram or the Islamic State had attempted to kill the president, but Koualmallah said the attackers were actually local youths from the national capital of N’Djamena who were either drunk or taking drugs.
“These are people that came from a certain neighbourhood of N’Djamena that I will not name. They did not have war weapons. Their attempt was disorganised and completely incomprehensible,” he said.
In a subsequent television interview, Koulamallah said there were 24 attackers in total, armed with knives and machetes. They drove up to the presidential palace, faked a problem with their vehicle, and then fell upon the four presidential guards who approached them, stabbing one to death.
The attackers pressed deeper into the presidential palace only to encounter armed guards, who shot 18 of them dead and placed the other six under arrest.
“I arrived on the scene shortly after the shooting, and I was impressed by the military deployment. We have a very good army, and the Chadians can sleep soundly. Our country is well guarded,” Koulamallah said.
Chadian security sources told a very different tale to foreign media, saying the perpetrators probably were affiliated with Boko Haram and only a “massive security lapse at the palace” allowed them to get so close to Deby.
Senegal-based security analyst Beverly Ochieng told Al Jazeera News that Boko Haram might have wanted to retaliate against Deby for Operation Haskanite, a counterattack ordered by Deby in October after Boko Haram attacked a village in the Lake Chad Basin and killed over forty Chadian troops.
Al Jazeera noted Deby’s rule has also been threatened by a rebel group called the Front for Change and Concord in Chad (FACT), the group Deby’s father was fighting when he was killed. President Idriss Deby reportedly died in battle in 2021.
“Chad is not a monarchy. There can be no dynastic devolution of power in our country,” FACT stated after the younger Deby took over in a military coup.
Ochieng lastly suggested the attack could have been an “inside job” by an aspiring junta leader who wanted to take power after “assassinating President Deby.”
The attack came about a week after Chad’s parliamentary elections, which became something of a debacle when most opposition parties denounced the process as a “charade” and refused to participate. Deby’s government has yet to announce the results of the election.
Deby’s government is technically a junta, as he seized power with military backing after his father Idriss Deby was killed fighting rebels in 2021. The elder Deby had been in power for three decades at the time of his death. The younger Deby attempted to consolidate power with a highly dubious election in May 2024. International observers dismissed the election as unfair and the country has been restless ever since.
The palace attack also coincided with a visit by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who met with Deby to discuss “advancing bilateral cooperation.” Wang had nothing but praise for Deby for bringing “stability” to Chad.
Chad abruptly ended its longstanding counter-terrorism cooperation agreement with former colonial power France in November, depriving France of its last operational base in the terrorist-filled Sahel region of Africa.
Koulamallah said in November that ejecting French forces was necessary to show that Chad has “grown up, matured, and is a sovereign state that is very jealous of its sovereignty.”
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