At 11:30 on the morning of May 7, 2009, a Presidential Guard battalion led by General Toufa Abdoulaye ambushed a column of UFR rebels on the eastern outskirts of Am Dam, a village 100 kilometers south of Abéché in southeastern Chad.

Am Dam’s hospital sustained severe damage when a government vehicle offloading casualties drew fire from rebels forces, which also destroyed 14 civilian structures in the vicinity with errant shells.

Less than an hour after the skirmish began, rebel vehicles that were passing to the south of Am Dam in an attempt to flank the smaller government force encountered an armored column of government reinforcements led by Hassan al Gadam al-Djineddi, chief of staff of the Chadian National Army, and General Tahir Ardah, general director of the Gendarmerie Nationale.

The rebel flanking movement was eliminated, and by 2:30 the remnants of the UFR column was racing back to safe havens in Darfur, with government forces in hot pursuit.

In May 2009, simultaneous with the UFR raid on Am Dam, the Front Populaire pour la Renaissance Nationale (FPRN), a Chadian rebel group led by Adoumj Yacoub, occupied the strategic town of Tissi at the tri-point of Chad, Sudan, and the Central African Republic.