N Djamena

The government said Saturday that it has checked a five-day Libyan-backed rebel offensive, while eyewitnesses reported that French military aircraft were delivering arms and ammunition to strengthen President Hissen Habre's forces. A statement issued at the end of a Cabinet meeting said government forces are in control of a string of towns and military garrisons south of the so-called "Red Line" splitting the country in two.

Chadian rebel leader Idriss Deby reached Chad's capital of N'Djamena on Sunday, capping a rebel offensive amid conflicting reports that President Hissen Habre had been killed while trying to flee the Central African country. Deby rode into N'Djamena in a black Mercedes-Benz escorted by a long convoy of jeeps and trucks, climaxing an offensive lasting barely three weeks.

Government forces used attack helicopters, tanks and heavy weapons Thursday to repel rebels who had charged 600 miles in pickup trucks from the Sudanese border to reach the capital of this volatile nation in the center of Africa. Four tanks guarded the presidential palace Thursday night. Reporters saw 13 bodies in the streets, and residents reported many more. Gen. Mahamet Ali Abdullah, speaking on state-run radio, said that government forces had killed hundreds of rebels.

Alamine Abbo steered his blue Peugeot taxi under the shade of a thorn tree on the dusty main street here the other day and ordered up 10 liters of Ali Abakar's finest. Abakar, a barefoot 25-year-old with a Seiko watch gleaming on his wrist, lifted a huge green wine jug from his table, fed one end of a sawed-off garden hose into the wider neck of the jug and the other end into Abbo's gas tank.

French troops shot down a Libyan bomber over the capital of Chad on Monday, prompting more uneasiness in Paris over France's growing involvement against its will in an escalation of the war in Central Africa. The bomber, a Soviet Tupolev 22, was blasted by an American-made Hawk missile as it joined two other Libyan bombers on a punitive raid on Chad in retaliation for a Chadian invasion and seizure of a military base in Libya two days earlier.

The Chadian government announced Saturday that its troops have recaptured the town of Aozou from Libya, breaking Tripoli's 14-year grip on a disputed desert region along the border between the two countries. A military statement read on state-run N'Djamena radio Saturday night said government forces retook the remote desert town after blunting a Libyan advance on Bardai, about 43 miles southwest of Aozou.

The Libyan army and air force attacked pro-government forces with napalm and toxic gas in northern Chad on Monday, the Chadian government said. The renewed effort to dislodge pro-government fighters from their Tibesti mountain strongholds in and around Bardai, 400 miles north of N'Djamena, came after the Libyans suffered what Chad's government and Western diplomats said was a major defeat in the area over the weekend.

Hundreds of civilians have died in fierce fighting between rebels and government forces here in Chad's capital, Red Cross officials said Tuesday, as the insurgents agreed to a cease-fire. Rebel leader Mahamat Nouri, leader of the biggest of three rebel groups in a coalition, told BBC radio Tuesday afternoon that the coalition accepted a Libyan-brokered cease-fire. Nouri said he did not think that the government had accepted.

The military high command reported Saturday that its forces killed 402 Libyan soldiers and captured 74 in fighting near the Libyan air base of Ouadi Doum in northern Chad. The report brings to 786 the number of Libyan soldiers reported killed in a 72-hour period of fighting, which a military communique described as "decisive and fierce."

Chad's president declared himself in control of the country Wednesday, though he acknowledged that three-fourths of his government had disappeared since rebels attacked this capital last week. For the first time since the assault began, more people were crossing bridges toward N'Djamena than away, apparently heeding a government call to return. Government forces pushed rebels out of the capital after weekend battles that left hundreds dead and sent thousands fleeing.