N'DJAMENA - More than 100 rebels and nine government soldiers were killed in two gun battles in eastern Chad this week, a government spokesman said Thursday. Chad's army also took 80 wounded rebels prisoner in the violence, which took place around Tamassi, near Chad's eastern border with Sudan, Information Minister Kedallah Younous said in a statement read on state radio late on Wednesday. The rebels involved in the fighting on April 24 and April 28 were from Adam Yacoub's FPRN rebel group, which is part of a coalition of insurgents that have been fighting against Chadian President Idriss Deby's government. There was no immediate comment from the rebels. Yacoub's rebels are based in Chad, but other anti-Deby forces have launched assaults on oil-producing Chad from Sudan. Over the last six years, Sudanese rebels have also used Chad's lawless east to launch attacks in Sudan's Darfur region. In February, Chad and Sudan agreed to end their proxy wars and work together to rebuild their border areas, a move seen aimed at bolstering security and credibility before impending polls in both nations. This week's violence in Chad comes as the government and the United Nations agreed on winding down the number of UN peacekeepers in Chad to 1,900 from a full strength mission of over 5,000. Chad, which will hold legislative elections this year and a presidential poll in 2011, had wanted to see the UN force pack up and go home. Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir won a decisive election earlier this month but faces a delicately balanced year as Sudan's northern and southern leaders - who fought each other during decades of civil war - try to tie up a list of contentious issues ahead of the South's secession referendum.
