Déby reverted to a one-man military rule after a hopeful broadening of the base of his regime in the late 1990s which was coupled by the growth of civil politics in N'Djamena.

[34] Déby relied heavily on a close-knit group of kinsmen and on claiming the allotted government finances for his own agenda, distributing aid in return for civilian loyalty.

Third is the Sudanese government's strategy for managing security within its border, which include treating the weak surrounding states as merely extensions of its internal limits.

[35] Throughout the country, government forces continued to arbitrarily arrest and detain civilians and suspected rebels, often on the basis of ethnicity, and subject them to what has been described as cruel and unusual punishment.

The attack (attributed to the Platform for Change, Unity and Democracy, SCUD, a group of Chadian military deserters) marked the beginning of a campaign of rebel incursions from Darfur.

On 13 April 2006, 1,200 to 1,500 FUC rebels in 56 pickup trucks dashed hundreds of kilometers across Chad from bases in Darfur and the Central African Republic to fight pitched gun battles with Chadian security forces on the streets of the capital city.

The fighting in Ndjaména lasted from 5 am to 11 am and included armored personnel carriers, technicals (4-wheel drive vehicles mounted with heavy weapons) and tanks, and was concentrated in the southeastern suburbs and at the Palais des Quinze, Chad's parliament, which rebel troops unfamiliar with the layout of the capital city mistook for the presidential palace.

[citation needed] Two mass graves are located in the southeastern suburbs of N’Djaména at a remote spot in Djari-Kawas, where government forces ambushed a rebel column.

[37] Chadian rebels led by Mahamat Nouri fought government forces in pitched street battles in N’Djaména on the morning of 2 February 2008.

By the afternoon of the next day, rebel forces withdrew from the capital, short on ammunition and unhinged by the possibility that one member of the coalition, Timan Erdimi, had sought a separate accommodation with the government.

The Chad government cited the UN mission's slow deployment, uneven record of success, and improvements in the security situation as reasons for its decision.

In May 2009, the UN revised the mission's mandate and authorized its gradual drawdown and closure by the end of the year, and effectively shifted full responsibility for the protection of civilians, including displaced populations and refugees from Darfur, to the Chadian security forces.

President Idriss Déby visited Khartoum, in February for the first time in six years; and in July, Chad, a state party to the International Criminal Court (ICC), hosted Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, earning the doubtful claim of being the first ICC member state to harbor a suspect from the court.

[41][42] The Foreign Ministry of Romania condemned the Rebels, announcing that it wanted to send 120 Romanian Peacekeeping Troops into the Country to help negotiate a Ceasefire.