Chad: Coup plot foiled – Idriss Deby administration

Chad has arrested a group of people for conspiring in what the government described as a “destabilization plot” in the landlocked central African country, which has a history of instability.

The Idriss Deby administration revealed that a small group of soldiers and civilians also took part in the alleged plot.

“A small group of ill-intentioned individuals attempted to carry out a destabilization plot against the institutions of the republic,” the government said in a statement Wednesday.

The government said the police had “neutralized” the group and that the arrested ringleaders had been handed over to prosecutors for investigation. “This small group… had been conspiring for more than four months to jeopardize the country’s hard-won peace,” it said.

Chad was wracked by civil war between 2005 and 2010.

Chad also sent around 2,000 troops to Mali this year in contribution to an African Union military offensive to dislodge al-Qaeda-linked Islamist extremists who had seized large swathes of the north last year. Its parliament voted this month to gradually withdraw the troops, which are highly trained, well equipped and experienced in desert warfare.