Gunmen launched an attack on Chad’s presidential complex in the capital, N’Djamena, on Wednesday, triggering a fierce gun battle that claimed 18 attackers’ lives and killed one security personnel, according to a government statement.
The government later said 19 people were killed in the fighting, of which 18 were members of the 24-strong commando unit that launched the assault.
“There were 18 dead and six injured” among the attackers “and we suffered one death and three injured, one of them seriously”, government spokesman and Foreign Minister Abdulrahman Koulamallah said.
Hours after the shooting, Koulamallah appeared in a video posted to Facebook, surrounded by soldiers and with a gun on his belt, saying “The situation is completely under control… the destabilization attempt was put down”.
A security source said the attackers were members of the Boko Haram jihadist group. Still, Koulamallah later said they were “probably not” terrorists, describing them as drunken “Pieds Nickeles” — a reference to a French comic featuring hapless crooks.
He said they attacked four guards before entering the presidential complex, where they were “easily overpowered”, adding the surviving assailants were “completely drugged”.
Landlocked Chad is under military rule and faces regular attacks by Boko Haram, especially in the western Lake Chad region that borders Cameroon, Nigeria and Niger.
