The
battle of Maaten al-Sarra was a battle fought between
ChadChad , officially known as the Republic of Chad, is a landlocked country in central Africa. It is bordered by Libya to the north, Sudan to the east, the Central African Republic to the south, Cameroon and Nigeria to the southwest, and Niger to the west...
and
LibyaLibya , officially the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya , is a country located in North Africa...
on September 5 1987 during the
Toyota WarThe Toyota War is the name commonly given to the last phase of the Chadian-Libyan conflict, which took place in 1987 in Northern Chad and on the Libyan-Chadian border. It takes its name from the Toyota pickup trucks used as technicals to provide mobility for the Chadian troops as they fought...
. The battle took the form of a surprise Chadian raid against the Libyan
Maaten al-Sarra Air BaseThe Maaten al-Sarra Libyan Air Force Base is an airbase in southernmost Libya located near the Ma'tan as-Sarra oasis in the Al Kufrah municipality...
, meant to remove the threat of Libyan airpower, that had already thwarted the Chadian attack on the Aouzou Strip in August. The first clash ever held in Libyan territory since the beginning of the Chadian-Libyan conflict, the attack was fully successful, causing a high number of Libyan casualties and low Chadian casualties, also contributing to the definitive
ceasefireA ceasefire is a temporary stoppage of a war in which each side agrees with the other to suspend aggressive actions. Ceasefires may be declared as part of a formal treaty, but they have also been called as part of an informal understanding between opposing forces.-World War I:On December 24, 1914,...
signed on September 11 among the warring countries.
Since 1983 Libyan troops had invaded Chad in support of the rebel Transitional Government of National Unity (GUNT) fighting against the Chadian government led by
Hissène HabréHissène Habré , also spelled Hissen Habré, was the leader of Chad from 1982 until he was deposed in 1990.-Early life:Habré was born in 1942 in Faya-Largeau, northern Chad, then a colony of France. He was born into a family of shepards. He is a member of the Anakaza branch of the Gorane ethnic group...
.
The
battle of Maaten al-Sarra was a battle fought between
ChadChad , officially known as the Republic of Chad, is a landlocked country in central Africa. It is bordered by Libya to the north, Sudan to the east, the Central African Republic to the south, Cameroon and Nigeria to the southwest, and Niger to the west...
and
LibyaLibya , officially the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya , is a country located in North Africa...
on September 5 1987 during the
Toyota WarThe Toyota War is the name commonly given to the last phase of the Chadian-Libyan conflict, which took place in 1987 in Northern Chad and on the Libyan-Chadian border. It takes its name from the Toyota pickup trucks used as technicals to provide mobility for the Chadian troops as they fought...
. The battle took the form of a surprise Chadian raid against the Libyan
Maaten al-Sarra Air BaseThe Maaten al-Sarra Libyan Air Force Base is an airbase in southernmost Libya located near the Ma'tan as-Sarra oasis in the Al Kufrah municipality...
, meant to remove the threat of Libyan airpower, that had already thwarted the Chadian attack on the Aouzou Strip in August. The first clash ever held in Libyan territory since the beginning of the Chadian-Libyan conflict, the attack was fully successful, causing a high number of Libyan casualties and low Chadian casualties, also contributing to the definitive
ceasefireA ceasefire is a temporary stoppage of a war in which each side agrees with the other to suspend aggressive actions. Ceasefires may be declared as part of a formal treaty, but they have also been called as part of an informal understanding between opposing forces.-World War I:On December 24, 1914,...
signed on September 11 among the warring countries.
Background
Since 1983 Libyan troops had invaded Chad in support of the rebel Transitional Government of National Unity (GUNT) fighting against the Chadian government led by
Hissène HabréHissène Habré , also spelled Hissen Habré, was the leader of Chad from 1982 until he was deposed in 1990.-Early life:Habré was born in 1942 in Faya-Largeau, northern Chad, then a colony of France. He was born into a family of shepards. He is a member of the Anakaza branch of the Gorane ethnic group...
. French military interventions had limited the Libyan-GUNT advance to the
16th parallelThe 16th parallel north is a circle of latitude that is 16 degrees north of the Earth's equatorial plane. It crosses Africa, Asia, the Indian Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, Central America, the Caribbean and the Atlantic Ocean....
(the so-called Red Line), freezing the
situation on the groundFacts on the ground is a diplomatic term that means the situation in reality as opposed to in the abstract. It can often be heard in discussions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.-See also:...
till 1986, when the bulk of the GUNT forces turned against their Libyan patrons, an opportunity that was immediately taken by Habré, that in December gave orders to his troops to attack Libyan positions in Northern Chad. Starting with
FadaThe battle of Fada took place in northern Chad in 1987, and was a turning point of the Libyan-Chadian War.- Prelude :At the beginning of 1986 the Libyans controlled all Chad north of the 16th parallel...
and continuing with B'ir Kora and Ouadi Doum, the
Chadian National Armed ForcesThe Chadian National Armed Forces was the army of the central government of Chad from January 1983, when the President Hissène Habré's forces, in first place his personal Armed Forces of the North , were merged...
' (FANT) commander-in-chief Hassan Djamous reported a series of victories that forced Libyan forces to fall back on the Aouzou Strip.
Ignoring French pleas for restraint, Habré assumed a militant attitude towards the Libyan occupation of the Aouzou Strip; his troops successfully took Aouzou on August 8, but were repulsed on August 28, partly due to French refusal to provide air cover for Habré's attempt to regain Aouzou.
Attack
Before the final Libyan assault, Habré had withdrawn
Hassan DjamousHassan Djamous was a Commander in Chief of the Chadian Army and a cousin of current Chadian President Idriss Déby. The Hassan Djamous International Airport is named after him....
and most of his veteran troops, planning to let them rest for a new offensive that would finally secure the Strip. Habré, judging by the decisive role played by close-range Libyan air strikes in the setback at Aouzou, concluded that Libya's greatest advantage was its ability to conduct endless air strikes. To remove this threat, Habré ordered Djamous to take 2,000 troops and destroy the main Libyan airbase in southern Libya, Maaten al-Sarra, 60 miles north of the Chadian-Libyan border. Habré may also have been encouraged in this raid by French President
François MitterrandFrançois Maurice Adrien Marie Mitterrand served as the President of France from 1981 to 1995, elected as representative of the Socialist Party . First elected during the May 1981 presidential election, he became the first socialist President of the Fifth Republic and the first left-wing head of...
's public declaration on September 3 that the Red Line was obsolete and thus French troops in Chad would no longer be bound by it.
Chad made military preparations for what seemed to be an attempt to retake Aouzou. Instead, encouraged by the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, which supplied
satellite intelligenceGEOINT stands for GEOgraphic INTelligence or GEOspatial INTelligence, which is an intelligence discipline comprising the exploitation and analysis of geographic information to describe, assess, and visually depict physical features and geographically referenced activities on the Earth...
, the FANT attacked Maaten al-Sarra on on September 5, taking the Libyans by surprise, and apparently the French as well, who reacted by refusing to provide
intelligenceMilitary intelligence is a military service that uses intelligence gathering disciplines to collect informations that informs commanders decision making process....
or
logisticMilitary logistics is the art and science of planning and carrying out the movement and maintenance of military forces. In its most comprehensive sense, it is those aspects or military operations that deal with:...
support. Djamous's troops were careful to follow the
wadiWadi is the Arabic term traditionally referring to a valley; in some cases it may refer to a dry riverbed that contains water only during times of heavy rain or simply an intermittent stream.-Variant names:...
s, thus not exposing themselves, and they also took advantage of careless Libyan patrolling and security, intending to take the airbase's garrison and its defenders by surprise. To confuse the Libyans, the FANT forces first proceeded north and northwest in Libyan territory, then turned east and descended upon Maaten al-Sarra; as a result, the Libyan officers took them for reinforcements and attempted to join them.
Nowithstanding the defenders' 2,500-strong garrison, tank brigade, artillery and extensive fortifications, the Chadian troops rapidly overcame the Libyan forces and assumed control of the base, starkly revealing the professional incompetence of the
Libyan militaryThe Military of Libya consists of the Libyan Army, Libyan Air Force and Libyan Navy the with other services which include the People's Militia, also the total number of Libyan personnel is estimated at 119,000. Colonel Abu-Bakr Yunis Jaber is the chief of the staff of the military...
. While the FANT's losses were minor, Libya suffered staggering casulties, with 1,713 Libyans killed, 300 taken prisoner and hundreds of others forced to flee into the surrounding desert. The Chadians then proceeded to demolish all the equipment they could not carry back, including 70 tanks, 30 APCs, 8
radarRadar is an object detection system that uses electromagnetic waves to identify the range, altitude, direction, or speed of both moving and fixed objects such as aircraft, ships, motor vehicles, weather formations, and terrain. The term RADAR was coined in 1941 as an acronym for RAdio Detection And...
stations, a radar scrambling device, numerous
SAMsA Surface to Air Missile or ground-to-air missile is a missile designed to be launched from the ground to destroy aircraft. It is a type of anti-aircraft system....
, and 26 aircraft—including 3
Mig-23The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-23 is a swing-wing fighter aircraft, designed by the Mikoyan-Gurevich bureau in the Soviet Union. It is considered to belong to the Soviet "Third Generation" aircraft category along with similar-aged Russian-produced fighters like the MiG-25 "Foxbat"...
, 1
Mi-24The Mil Mi-24 is a large helicopter gunship and low-capacity troop transport produced by Mil Moscow Helicopter Plant and operated from 1972 by the Soviet Air Force, its successors, and over thirty other nations...
, and 4
MiragesThe Mirage III is a supersonic fighter aircraft designed in France by Dassault Aviation during the late 1950s, and manufactured both in France and a number of other countries. It was a successful fighter aircraft, being sold to many air forces around the world and remaining in production for over a...
; they also tore up the base's two
runwayA runway is a strip of land at an airport on which aircraft can take off and land and forms part of the maneuvering area. Runways may be a man-made surface or a natural surface .By extension, the term has come to mean, in addition, any long, flat, straight area, such as that used in fashion...
s. Then, traveling without lights beneath the moon and stars, the FANT column withdrew to Chadian soil on September 6, and the Chadian government declared that the battle "must be written in gold letters in the great book of victories."
Reactions
Gaddafi's first reaction was to place the blame for the defeat on the French, challenging their position in Chad. A couple of days after Djamous' raid on Maaten two Tu-22 were dispatched, one to attack
N'DjamenaN'Djamena , population 721,000 , is the capital city of Chad. It is also the largest city in the country. A port on the Chari River, near the confluence with the Logone River, it directly faces the Cameroonian town of Kousséri, to which the city is connected by a bridge. It is also a special...
, the Chadian capital, and other to
AbéchéAbéché is the 4th largest city in Chad, the capital of Ouaddaï Region. The town is served by Abéché Airport.-History:The city of Abéché was made capital of the Ouaddai Kingdom - Sultanat de Quaddai- in the 1890s, after the wells at Ouara, the former capital, had dried out. In 1909, French troops...
; the air raid was unsuccessful, as the Tupolev attacking the capital was shot down by a
French ArmyThe French Army, officially the Armée de Terre , is the land-based component of the French Armed Forces and its largest. As of 2008, the army employs 133,947 regular soldiers and 24 000+ civilians...
HawkThe Raytheon MIM-23 HAWK is an American medium range surface-to-air missile. As a backronym, some consider HAWK to stand for Homing All the Way Killer. The HAWK was initially designed to destroy aircraft and was later adapted to destroy other missiles in flight. The missile entered service in 1960,...
SAMA Surface to Air Missile or ground-to-air missile is a missile designed to be launched from the ground to destroy aircraft. It is a type of anti-aircraft system....
batteryIn military organizations, an artillery battery is a unit of guns, mortars, rockets or missiles so grouped in order to facilitate better battlefield communication and command and control, as well as to provide dispersion for its constituent gunnery crews and their systems...
, while the second plane was forced to return to Libya without dropping its bombs. Libya's reaction to the downing was to publicly accuse the Maaten raid of being a "combined Franco-American military action", and added that France and the United States were "behind the aggression against Libya."
While the United States did not conceal its satisfaction for the Libyan defeat, a US official adding that "We basically jump for joy every time the Chadians ding the Libyans", France reacted differently, with the
Defence MinisterA defence minister is a cabinet position which regulates the armed forces in some sovereign nations. The minister usually has a very important role in a cabinet....
Andre Giraud expressing "deepest regrets" over the escalation. The French appeared to have judged the battle of Maaten al-Sarra even too successful for Habré, giving way to concerns that the battle was only the first stage of a general invasion of Libya, a thing that France wanted to avoid at all costs; therefore, on September 11 Mitterrand pressed Habré in agreeing to a
ceasefireA ceasefire is a temporary stoppage of a war in which each side agrees with the other to suspend aggressive actions. Ceasefires may be declared as part of a formal treaty, but they have also been called as part of an informal understanding between opposing forces.-World War I:On December 24, 1914,...
with Gaddafi, the Libyan leader accepting due to internal demoralization and foreign hostility. While the ceasefire was subject to many minor violations, it substantially resisted, thus putting an end to the Chadian-Libyan conflict.