Despite Chadian leader Idriss Déby’s declared neutrality during Bashir’s early 2000s counterinsurgency, he could not prevent Chadian and Sudanese Zaghawa from supporting rebels in Darfur (Marchal, 2024). In response, Khartoum backed Chadian coalitions to launch attacks on N’Djamena, Chad, among them the Gorane and Tubu Union des Forces pour la Démocratie et le Développement (UFDD), the largely Arab Union des Forces pour la Démocratie et le Développement-Fondamental, and the Zaghawa-dominated Rassemblement des Forces pour le Changement (RFC) (Tubiana, 2008; Picco, 2023).
In 2008, these groups attacked N’Djamena again, prompting Déby to call reinforcements from the largely Zaghawa JEM for defence. Déby funded JEM’s attack on Omdurman, Sudan, illustrating the reciprocal patterns of proxy warfare. By 2010, Bashir and Déby came to an agreement, and Déby pushed JEM to negotiate with Khartoum, while Bashir stopped funding to the Chadian rebels. Many UFDD and RFC fighters subsequently moved into Libya. These cycles of support and retaliation entrenched a regional system of rebellion and transformed interstate relations, blurring national security policy with proxy warfare.
In 2016, Mahamat Mahdi Ali left the UFDD in Libya to create Le Front pour l’Alternance et la Concorde au Tchad (FACT). FACT initially partnered with the Misrati militias in southern Libya. Haftar bribed FACT fighters to work with him as he consolidated control over Libya’s southern region. Thus, Libya became a centre for Chadian and Sudanese
armed politics.
Chad emerged as a thread linking together the wars in Darfur, Libya, and CAR, yet the networks fuelling cross-border war economies began to fracture under competing interests.
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