E.U. Deployment To Chad Delayed

Rebel Violence Flares Near Capital

PARIS, Feb. 1 -- The European Union said Friday it had postponed the deployment of a peacekeeping force to protect Darfur refugees because of an upsurge of rebel activity in neighboring Chad.

The rebels, numbering 1,500 to 2,000 and carrying weapons, moved toward the Chadian capital in as many as 250 pickup trucks, a French Defense Ministry spokesman, Col. Thierry Burkhard, said Thursday.

Government troops blocked them at the capital's eastern and northern entrances Thursday night, France Info radio reported. Fighting broke out Friday morning in Massaguet, 35 miles northeast of the capital, it said.

In Paris, a spokesman for the E.U.'s military mission said a flight carrying 54 special forces members from Ireland was canceled Thursday evening because of the rebel offensive.

The peacekeeping mission was due to be up and running early next month, said Commandant Dan Harvey, speaking at the E.U. military headquarters in Paris. The deployment of the advance force could be postponed for days, he said.

The force, known as EUFOR, is aimed at protecting refugees from the conflict-racked Darfur region of Sudan, as well as protecting Chadians and Central Africans displaced by turmoil in their own countries. Harvey said about 70 E.U. troops already are on the ground in Chad, setting up bases for an E.U. force that eventually is to total 3,700.

A top Sudanese official said the unrest in Chad was not connected to the violence across the border in Darfur and disputed Chadian claims that Sudan was backing the rebels.

"We consider what is going on in Chad as an internal problem," Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem Mohamad, Sudan's ambassador to the United Nations, told the Associated Press outside the African Union summit in Ethiopia. "The problems of Chad are not because of Darfur. They have their own homegrown problems."

But Irish Defense Minister Willie O'Dea said the rebels were backed by Sudan.

"There is military conflict between the government forces and the rebels, who are no doubt supported by the Sudanese," O'Dea said. "Who is getting the upper hand will not be clear for some time yet." He said the Royal Irish Rangers could deploy no sooner than Wednesday.

France sent more troops late Thursday to boost a longtime military presence in Chad. About 150 of its Gabon-based troops arrived Friday in Chad as a "precautionary measure." France already has 1,250 soldiers based in Chad, a former French colony that has faced rebel violence against President Idriss Deby's government since 2005.