CHAD MAY ACCEPT UN FORCES TO PREVENT WIDER WAR

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 02 KHARTOUM 002687 SIPDIS SIPDIS DEPARTMENT FOR AF/FO, AF/SPG, AF/SE, AF/RSA, AND AF/E NSC FOR PITTMAN AND SHORTLEY E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/15/2016 TAGS: PREL PGOV PTER PINR KPKO SU CD NG SO UN SUBJECT: CHAD MAY ACCEPT UN FORCES TO PREVENT WIDER WAR KHARTOUM 00002687 001.2 OF 002 Classified By: P/E Chief E. Whitaker, Reason: Sections 1.4 (b) and (d) ¶1. (S) Summary: Blaming Sudan for the deteriorating security situation in his country, Chadian Embassy Security Chief Mohamad Tahir Tordjok (strictly protect) said the Chadian government would accept United Nations peacekeeping forces in Chad to secure its eastern border. Tordjok claimed that 300 civilians have been killed and seven villages have been destroyed in Chad within the last five days by Arab militias backed by the Sudanese government, who also recently assassinated three Chadian rebel leaders in El Geneina. Warning of a widening Sahelian war, Tordjok described reports of Sudanese government sponsorship of Islamic militants from Niger and Somalia and asked for USG assistance in verifying this information. End summary. -------------- SUDAN DESTABILIZING CHAD -------------- ¶2. (S) In a November 15 meeting with Poloff, Chadian Embassy Security Chief Mohamed Tahir Tordjok attributed the deteriorating security situation in Chad to raiding Arab militias backed by the Sudanese government. He claimed that at least 300 people have been killed and seven villages destroyed in the last five days in brief cross-border raids by the approximately 500 Sudanese Arab fighters positioned in Sudan. Among the recent casualties of the conflict were Col. Bakr Bangui, a Zaghawa Chadian rebel leader opposed to President Deby. According to Tordjok, Bangui had been crossing the porous border for the last year. On November 8 or 9, a group of five masked Sudanese Arab fighters killed Bangui, Mushara Tahir Narjiss, and one other Chadian rebel in a raid on their safehouse in El Geneina, having mistaken them for partisans of President Deby. -------------- CHAD WILLING TO ACCEPT UN FORCES -------------- ¶3. (S) As a result of the worsening violence, Tordjok said that his government would accept UN peacekeeping elements in Eastern Chad to secure the lengthy and porous border. Noting that the Janjaweed strike quickly and then retreat into Sudan, he said that UN troops, in cooperation with the 11,000 to 12,000 Chadian security forces along the border, could improve intelligence reporting and information dissemination to enhance Chadian rapid response capabilities. "All the solutions point to an international force in Chad, Darfur, and the Central African Republic," said Tordjok. (Note: According to Tordjok, the Chadian police, army, and gendarmes in eastern Chad have been consolidated under a single command as part of the State of Emergency declared on November 13. End note.) -------------- ISLAMIC MILITANTS -------------- ¶4. (S) Tordjok said that Chadian Arabs militants who settled in Niger within the last 50 years have been recruited by the Sudanese government and are traveling to Sudan from Niger via Libya using Sudanese laissez-passer documents issued by the Sudanese Embassy in Niamey. These men are then receiving military training at camps in Darfur. He attributed this information to "several Sudanese businessmen" who travel frequently to Niger, to a Chadian source in Sabha, Libya, and to his brother, a diplomat at the Chadian Consulate in Sirte, Libya. Tordjok said the Chadian government was collecting additional information through its embassy in Niamey and that intense diplomatic and intelligence exchanges on this issue were ongoing between the Nigerien and Chadian governments. He estimated that there was a 75 percent chance the information was accurate and asked for USG assistance in verifying it because Chadian intelligence capabilities were limited. Tordjok also claimed that the Sudanese government was sponsoring Somali militants sympathetic to the Islamic Courts and securing Chadian passports for them under false identities in order to obtain Ethiopian visas. Tordjok said that many of these Somalis were studying at the International University of Africa in Khartoum, which he characterized as a center for militant Islamic indoctrination. -------------- BIO DATA -------------- ¶5. (S) Tordjok was born in a border area of Eastern Chad and KHARTOUM 00002687 002.2 OF 002 completed his education at Omdurman University in Khartoum. He has significant personal contacts within the Sudanese immigration and border services, based on familial relationships. For several months in 2006, he served as the Charge d'Affaires at the Chadian Embassy in Khartoum in the absence of the ambassador. ¶6. (U) Tripoli minimize considered. HUME