(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-02-03 22:40

NAIROBI, Kenya -- Chadian forces backed by tanks and helicopter gunships struggled to repel a rebel assault on the capital Sunday, the French military said, and insurgents claimed to have trapped the president in his palace.

Chadian soldiers are deployed in Biltine after clashes with UFDD rebels in 2006. A second day of fierce fighting has rocked the Chad capital N'Djamena as rebels surrounded President Idriss Deby in his palace and hundreds of foreigners fled the country. [Agencies]

"Nobody can say who will win," said a French military spokesman, Capt. Christophe Prazuck. France has a long-standing military presence in Chad, a former colony.

The rebels arrived on the capital's outskirts Friday after a three-day push across the desert from Chad's eastern border with Sudan. Backed by 250 pickup trucks mounted with machine guns, between 1,000 and 1,500 insurgents entered the city early Saturday, quickly spreading through the streets.

Prazuck said the fighting resumed around dawn Sunday, and government forces were using tanks and helicopter gunships to try to push out the rebels, who were battling back with assault weapons, rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns.

President Idriss Deby was trapped in his palace, the rebels said, denying a report that Libya had brokered a cease-fire. Government officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

"The night was fairly calm, but it started again this morning, and there are violent clashes in the capital as we speak," rebel spokesman Mahamat Hassane Boulmaye said, speaking from the border with neighboring Sudan.

He said it was too early to give a death toll, but claimed the government had suffered "heavy losses" and the army was "weakened." A day earlier, Boulmaye had said many soldiers were defecting to the rebel side.

French Defense Minister Herve Morin told Europe-1 radio Sunday, however, that Deby "still has command over practically all of the Chadian army."

"He has at least 2,000 to 3,000 men under his authority, and obviously what happens today will be very important," Morin said.

The violence has endangered a $300 million global aid operation supporting millions in Chad, and also delayed the deployment of the European Union's peacekeeping mission to both Chad and neighboring Central African Republic, which had also been torn by civil strife.

Chad has been convulsed by civil wars and invasions since independence from France in 1960. The recent discovery of oil has only increased the intensity of the power struggles in the largely desert country, and another Chadian rebel group launched a failed assault on N'Djamena in 2006.

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