General Mahamat Nouri (born 1947)[1] is a Chadian insurgent leader who currently commands the Union of Forces for Democracy and Development (UFDD).
Nouri led the creation, from a plurality of armed movements, the most powerful of the Chadian rebel groups, the Union of Forces for Democracy and Development (UFDD).
After the ultimate failure of a series of talks held in Libya in 2007, Nouri coalesced with two other rebel groups and launched a direct attack on the Chadian capital in February 2008, but was repelled after days of heavy fighting.
[29] The former ambassador was promptly attacked by the Chadian government, whose spokesman Hourmadji Mousa Doumgor accused him of paying men in Sudan US $250 each to join the group he was allegedly forming.
[31] Judged a charismatic and experienced leader, Nouri was considered the greatest threat faced by Déby since the rebellion of another former Minister of Defense, Youssouf Togoïmi.
[19] Such scenarios were elaborated by the Chadian newspaper Le Temps, which, remembering Nouri's past links with Sudan and Egypt while a man of Habré, speculates about a French and plan to overthrow Déby with Egyptian and Sudanese support.
[32][33] On the morning of October 22 Nouri founded a new rebel coalition, the Union of Forces for Democracy and Development (UFDD), which included three movements: his UFPD, the Democratic Revolutionary Council (CDR) led by Acheikh ibn Oumar and a splinter faction of the United Front for Democratic Change under Abdelwahid Aboud Mackaye,[34] giving birth to a Toubou-Arab coalition.
[39][40] After the fall of Abéché, French sources had warned that the capital N'Djamena could have been attacked in 24 hours; this eventually did not take place, possibly because of Nouri's stated decision to avoid direct attacks on the capital, but to point instead for a war or of attrition, employing hit and run tactics: "our objective so to defeat the enemy troops is to progressively weaken them ... we have inflicted heavy losses on Déby's army, we are now withdrawing ... our final objective remains the fall of N'Djamena, but without haste".
Nouri denied he was fighting for personal power, and instead claimed that if victorious "we intend to organise a national forum, during which a short transition will take place ... to reach free and fair elections".
This was caused by the expulsion in April 2007 from the movement of the UFDD vice-president ibn Oumar, whose Arab elements have played a key role in the battles that took place in late 2006.
But when Acheikh asked for a major space for his men in the movement's organization, he was replaced by Nouri with Adoum Hassab Allah and his Ouaddaian fighters.
The UFDD awnsered that Dinguess claims were "ridiculous and shameful" and part of a campaign "to denounce all those that oppose Déby as linked to Habré, or Anakaza or Gorane" and added that Korei was only one of many cadres in the movement.
[33] To put an end to the conflict among the Chadian government and the rebels the first to propose himself as a mediator was in April 2007 the former president Goukouni Oueddei, who said he would contact both Nouri and Timane Erdimi, leader of the Rally of Democratic Forces, an idea that Déby said to agree on.
[46] Eventually talk peaces sponsored by the Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi began in Tripoli on June 23 between the Chadian government, whose delegation was led by Infrastructure Minister Adoum Younousmi, and a rebel one, which included a delegation formed by Mahamat Nouri for the UFDD, Timane Erdimi for the Gathering of Forces for Change (the former RaFD), Hassan al-Djineidi for the Chadian National Concord (CNT) and Aboud Mackaye for the UFDD-F.[47][48] Through these talks a preliminary peace agreement was signed on October 3, which was criticized by part of the rebels as being too vague regarding the terms for disarmament and reintegration of their respective forces into the Chadian military.
[52] On November 23 Nouri attacked Déby, saying "I think that N'Djamena forgot about the accord", and adding: "We were to meet them in Khartoum in order to study the practical aspects and how to apply them, but the Chadian government did not send their delegation".
[56] What followed in the successive weeks has been reported as the worst fighting seen in Chad since almost 20 years, with Déby's forces successfully resisting to the rebel attacks, keeping them east of the Goz Beïda-Abéché-Kalaït line;[33] while in the first violent important clash among the UFDD and the army at Abou Galem on October 26 losses had been about equal on each side, in the following days the UFDD suffered heavy losses, losing most of his troops.
[60] On January 28, 2008, in an attack said to be planned by the Sudanese Defence Minister Abd-er-Rahim Mohamed Hussein, Nouri and his allies left Sudan with 2,000 troops mounted on 250 pick-ups.
These were intercepted and defeated by Déby's Sudanese ally, the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), thus forcing the rebels to give up for good and moved to Mongo in central Chad to regroup.
[58] As expected,[58] this generated serious divisions: when Nouri announced the creation of a new military formation, the National Alliance, of which he was to be the President, the new group saw the exclusion of the RFC.
The new alliance was composed by the UFDD and UFDD-F, and also a third group, the Front for the Health of the Republic (FSR) led by Ahmat Soubiane, which was not part of the previous Unified Military Command.