N Djamena

Libyan fighter jets conducted raids in northern Chad for the third day Tuesday, dropping bombs and napalm on towns hundreds of miles inside Chadian territory, the army high command said. A military communique read over the radio said that Libyan aircraft bombed three towns, including the oasis of Faya-Largeau, the administrative capital of northern Chad. They also attacked the outpost of Ounianga Kebir and the former Libyan air base of Ouadi-Doum, the communique said.

A DC-10 jetliner carrying 154 people from the Congo to Paris disappeared today shortly after taking off from a stopover in Chad, the French airline UTA said. The flight originated in Brazzaville, Congo, and had made a stop in N'Djamena, Chad, the airline said. Contact was lost with the aircraft shortly after takeoff and there was no indication of the plane's fate more than five hours after contact was lost, UTA said. UTA Flight 772 was carrying 140 passengers and a crew of 14, the airline said.

A second look at some 40-million-year-old fossils provides a missing link to suggest that the closest living relative of whales is the hippo, a group of scientists said Monday. Writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team from UC Berkeley, the University of Poitiers in France and the University of N'djamena in Chad proposed a theory that whales and hippos had a common water-loving ancestor 50 to 60 million years ago.

Col. Moammar Kadafi watched soldiers planting mines, laying barbed wire and digging trenches to fortify Libya's coast, state-run television reported Monday. It said the operation was aimed at turning the coast into an "armed fortress and a hell that will burn whoever dares to approach it." The report did not indicate when the Libyan leader made the inspection nor what part of the coast he visited.

Markets opened in Chad's capital, N'Djamena, and residents returned to their weekend routines a week after an attempted coup by rebels triggered days of violence. The situation in the interior of the desert country was less clear. The only certain information was that the rebels have not crossed over Chad's eastern border into Sudan, French military spokesman Capt. Christophe Prazuck said. He said he did not have details on whether fighting continued in the center of the oil-rich country, and rebel spokesmen could not be reached.

N'DJAMENA, Chad -- Soldiers loyal to Chad's president have repulsed an attempted military coup, the communications minister said Wednesday. The coup plotters fled after being driven back by troops supporting President Idriss Deby in the capital Tuesday night, Communications Minister Hourmadji Moussa Doumngor said.

The armed forces of Chad killed 122 pro-Libyan soldiers in fighting near the country's border with Sudan, an official statement said Tuesday. The soldiers, who died in four days of clashes that ended Monday, were members of the Libyan-backed Islamic Legion and included two leaders, identified as Haroun Gody and Mahamat Djaglo, the statement said. Gody was once a member of the Chadian government of President Hissen Habre.

A DC-10 airliner bound from Congo to Paris with 155 people aboard disappeared Tuesday, probably over the West African country of Niger, the French airline UTA said. A U.S. ambassador's wife was among the passengers, and a Chadian Cabinet minister also was reported on board. UTA said there was no word of the plane's fate by nightfall, more than five hours after contact was lost. Bonnie Pugh, wife of Robert L. Pugh, the U.S.

French jet fighters today attacked strategic radar installations held by Libyans in northern Chad in retaliation for a weekend Libyan bombing raid in the southern part of that African nation. A Defense Ministry statement said the radar installations at Ouadi-Doum were "neutralized" in the afternoon raid by forces of Operation Sparrowhawk, the 1,400 French soldiers based in the former French colony to support President Hissen Habre's government.