Chad has protested to Sudan after it said that Sudanese military aircraft had flown over army positions in the violence-torn east. The central African country also on Monday accused Khartoum of continuing to back anti-government forces in the remote desert region. Ahmad Allam-Mi, the Chadian foreign minister, summoned the Sudanese ambassador to strongly protest at the Sudanese flights to the east of the town of Adre, on the border with Sudan and more than 800 km from the capital N'Djamena. He did not specify what action would be taken if flights continued.
Allam-Mi told Reuters: "The Sudanese air force began yesterday to fly over the positions of the Chadian army. I summoned the Sudanese ambassador in Chad this morning to raise a strong protest and I said that Chad would take all the necessary measures." Chad also accused Khartoum of supporting rebels who are fighting a low intensity war in eastern Chad to oust Idriss Deby, the Chadian president.| Reminds me of a tale: in the early 1970s the Shah of Iran, just after receiving his shiny new F-14s and before all his troubles with the Mad Mullahs™ began, had noted that the Soviets were routinely sending spy planes into Iranian airspace. He summoned the Soviet ambassador and complained about this. The Soviet ambassador replied that he didn't know what the Shah was talking about, those certainly weren't Soviet spy planes. The Shah replied, fine, since the planes weren't theirs, the Soviets certainly wouldn't mind if the Shah used his new F-14s to shoot them down. The overflights stopped. |