Chad: Suspected terror group clashes with soliders near Niger border, 43 militants killed

N'DJAMENA, Chad (AP) _ The Chadian army battled Islamic militants near a remote village on the country's western border with Niger, killing 43 ``terrorists'' of a group suspected of links

Friday, March 12th 2004, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

N'DJAMENA, Chad (AP) _ The Chadian army battled Islamic militants near a remote village on the country's western border with Niger, killing 43 ``terrorists'' of a group suspected of links with al-Qaida, the government said Friday.

Three soldiers were also killed and 18 wounded in two days of fighting that started Monday near the village of Zouake, Chad's information minister, Moukhtar Wawa Dahab, said in the capital, N'Djamena.

Suspecting that al-Qaida might be recruiting and planning new attacks in the deserts and jungles of Africa, the United States is helping train and equip security forces in Chad, Niger and two other Saharan nations to better guard their porous borders against terrorists and arms trafficking.

Some 200 U.S. soldiers have been deployed throughout the continent to patrol alongside local armies or hunt terrorists on short notice if necessary. However, a U.S. defense official, speaking in Washington on condition of anonymity, said Thursday that no American forces took part in the fighting in Chad.

Clashes started when five trucks packed with fighters from the Salafist Group for Call and Combat crossed from Niger into Chad, where soldiers on a routine patrol intercepted them, Dahab said.

The Salafist group is an Algerian Islamic militant organization believed to have ties to Osama bin-Laden's al-Qaida.

The militants quickly scattered into the dunes around the village and began battling soldiers with assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars, Dahab said.

The fighting lasted until Wednesday, when the surviving Islamic militants fled back into Niger, Dahab said. It was not clear how many militants took part in the fighting.

Among those killed were foreigners from Niger, Mali and Algeria. Five suspected militants also were captured _ three from Niger, one from Chad and an Algerian, he said.

Western military and security officials in recent years have singled out the Salafist group as a particular threat amid concerns of possible terrorist activity along ancient Sahara trading routes linking Arab and African nations.

Analysts see al-Qaida as finding an ideal new staging ground in Africa, where governments are weak, poorly paid authorities are easily bribed, and communications are slow and in some places don't exist. Also, African armies, relatively small and poorly equipped, have difficulty monitoring their vast territories, U.S. officials have said.