Rebel Forces Roll Into Chad's Capital, Battle For Control

The rebels rolled toward the capital in a convoy of about 300 trucks, battling government forces on the eastern and northern outskirts of the city and later near the presidential palace, European officials said.

An American aid worker, who was unable to leave a hotel near the palace because of the fighting, wrote on the Web site of his organization, Stop Genocide Now, that he and his colleagues were sneaking back and forth to the hotel's third-floor windows to "get a glimpse of anything, something, usually just black smoke coming from the Presidential palace."

"Nobody really knows what is happening," Gabriel Stauring, 41, wrote. "We go through some quiet minutes, and it feels close to normal, but then, consistently, we get big bangs and non-stop gunfire. . . . As I write this, a shell hit way too close to us, the kind of bang you feel on your skin."

By Saturday night, he wrote, bullets were flying and walls and objects were falling on top of him and about 50 other people huddled in the hotel's dining room. Outside, a few French soldiers fought off gunmen who were also trying to take over the state-controlled radio station and a nearby hotel.

"We can only guess as to the extent of destruction around the city; there was almost nonstop heavy shooting, artillery, helicopter fire," he wrote later in an e-mail to The Washington Post.

Libya's official news agency, JANA, reported that rebel leader Mahamat Nouri agreed to a cease-fire Saturday night after speaking to Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi, who was appointed by the African Union to mediate, according to the Associated Press. The report could not be confirmed.

The State Department urged all American citizens to leave Chad and authorized the departure of non-emergency U.S. government employees because of the rebel advance, said Karl Duckworth, a department spokesman. About 500 Americans are estimated to be living in or visiting Chad.

France, which has 1,400 troops stationed in Chad and is widely seen as D¿by's most powerful backer, condemned the rebel attack and called for reconciliation. French troops were not engaged in fighting the rebels, however, and remained focused on efforts to evacuate French and other European citizens.

The attack on N'Djamena delayed the deployment of 3,700 European Union troops to eastern Chad, where they were to help protect displaced Chadians and an estimated 230,000 Sudanese refugees who have fled the conflict in the Darfur region of western Sudan.

According to analysts, the rebels believed the presence of the E.U. troops would curtail their own military plans, and European officials said Saturday that the rebel attack had been deliberately timed to thwart the troop deployment.

"This is no coincidence," a French official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the crisis.

Wright reported from Washington. Special correspondent Kassahun Addis in Addis Ababa contributed to this report.