By Pascal Fletcher DAKAR, Feb 4 (Reuters) - The rebels who stormed into Chad's capital at the weekend aimed to disrupt a European Union peacekeeping deployment to the country and its task now looked even more challenging, a security analyst said on Monday. Bjoern Seibert, author of a study on the imminent EU military deployment in the central African country, said the two-day assault by rebel fighters in armed pickup trucks had the hallmarks of a pre-emptive move against the European mission. After two days of street fighting, Chad President Idriss Deby's government said on Monday it had driven off the rebels and regained control of the capital N'Djamena. The rebels said they had made a tactical withdrawal and would attack again. Citing the violence, the EU announced it was temporarily delaying the deployment to the east of Chad of the 3,700-strong peace force. It has a United Nations mandate to protect refugees who have fled violence in neighbouring Sudan's Darfur region. "It was a really good moment for the rebels to strike," said Seibert, whose study "African Adventure?" was published late last year as a working paper at the Security Studies Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Seibert said despite assertions of neutrality from EU commanders, the rebels appeared to see the arrival of European troops as impacting on the fragile balance of power in Chad, which has a history of civil wars and coups. "The (EU) force would have shouldered some of the security responsibility that burdened Deby, provided him with a strategic pause, which would have allowed him to concentrate his forces in defeating the rebels," Seibert said in phone and email comments. "Once the EU force would be in the theatre, there would be more surveillance of the area of operations" along Chad's rugged eastern border with Sudan's Darfur region, he added. Seibert said even if Deby resisted the latest rebel push to the west, the weekend attack, which his government accused Sudan of backing, seemed certain to stoke more unrest in Chad. "I think that if Deby hangs on there is the possibility of a regional war ... even if he survives the fighting in N'Djamena, it seems he is losing his grip on the country," added the analyst, at Boston's Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. TOO SMALL FOR BIG JOB This would create an even more hostile environment for the EU force, which will bring together troops from 14 EU nations, more than half of them from Chad's former colonial ruler France. France already has a military contingent in the African state. Some of the leaders of the rebels, who oppose Deby's 18-year rule as corrupt and dictatorial, had said they could attack the EU force if it interfered in their campaign to oust Deby. They also criticised the dominant French component, citing what they said was Paris' longstanding support for Deby. "The attack also proved that the EU force is not perceived as neutral," Seibert said. His study had concluded that the EU force, backed by around 10 helicopters, would be under-strength for its mission to protect civilians in a vast operations area of 350,000 square kilometres, with underdeveloped infrastructure. Besides eastern Chad, the area includes a part of Central African Republic. "Given the increased instability on the ground, such a force level seems even more inadequate," Seibert said. He added that even if the rebels succeeded in toppling Deby there was considerable doubt about whether they could agree on a consensus president, much less form a stable government. "Chad is a notoriously fragmented country. A number of rebel movements operating in other parts of the territory will likely attempt to profit from the political vacuum thus created -- leading to a "Somalification" of Chad, which would negatively affect the neighbouring countries," Seibert said. (Editing by Janet Lawrence)
Soldiers from the joint United Nations-African Union (UNAMID) peacekeeping force guard a supply convoy leaving El Fasher in Sudan's Darfur region, January 13, 2008. United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said this ...
