Libya’s Grip on Desert Area Broken, Chad Says

N'DJAMENA, Chad — 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 barbaric troops of Tripoli are at this very moment suffering total defeat on Chadian soil,” the statement added.

Cheering in the Streets

The announcement brought hundreds of cheering people onto the streets of N’Djamena, the capital, to celebrate what the radio called the “liberation of the Aozou town of martyrs.”

N’Djamena radio said Chadian forces had captured Aozou town after a clash with Libyan troops moving toward Chadian positions near Bardai, an oasis town in the northern foothills of the rugged Tibesti Mountain range.

Aozou is the administrative capital of the so-called Aozou Strip, a 42,000-square-mile region annexed by Libyan leader Col. Moammar Kadafi in 1973.

Rich in Uranium

Libya has maintained that it owns the area, said to be rich in uranium, iron ore and other minerals, under a pre-World War II agreement made when Chad was a French colony and Libya was ruled by Italy. France ceded the strip to Italy in exchange for a piece of Libyan territory adjoining Tunisia.

Italy never ratified the agreement, and France has also held it invalid.

The strip was the last part of northern Chad still controlled by Libyan forces, and its recapture, if confirmed, would mark a humiliating end of Libya’s long involvement in Chad.

Libyan forces were driven from their other military strongholds in the central African country after a string of battles in January and March.

Libyan Losses Were Heavy

The Libyans suffered heavy losses in men and equipment last March as the Chadian forces, skilled in desert warfare, chased them from a big Libyan base at Ouadi Doum, about 250 miles southeast of Aozou town, and Faya-Largeau, southwest of Ouadi Doum. The Chadians captured airplanes, helicopters, a large number of tanks and hundreds of other vehicles.

Kadafi refused to acknowledge that Libyan troops were involved, however, contending that the fighting in northern Chad was a civil conflict between rival Chadian factions.

And Libya maintained its claim to the Aozou Strip, despite its crushing military defeats last spring. The Chadian government, though, vowed to oust the Libyans from all Chadian territory.

Air Base Fate Unclear

It was not immediately clear Saturday whether forces loyal to Chadian President Hissen Habre had also captured a key Libyan air base north of Aozou town.

The installation, whose hard-surface landing strip is shown by military maps as straddling the Chad-Libyan border, is Libya’s last remaining stronghold in northern Chad.

Western military experts say the base is defended by several thousand Libyan troops and would have to be taken before Chad could claim to thoroughly control the Aozou Strip.