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

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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.

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SUDAN DESTABILIZING CHAD
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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.

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CHAD WILLING TO ACCEPT UN FORCES
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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.)

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ISLAMIC MILITANTS
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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.

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BIO DATA
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5. (S) Tordjok was born in a border area of Eastern Chad and

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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