Chadian President Idriss Deby sacked his defence minister yesterday after doubts emerged about his ability to control former rebels as the government faced a renewed insurgency in the east.
Mr Mahamat Nour Abdelkerim, a former anti-Deby rebel chief who became defence minister in March after making peace with the government, was relieved of his post after he sought refuge in the Libyan embassy in N'Djamena, officials said.
Foreign Minister Ahmat Allam-Mi told reporters there had been doubts about whether former insurgents whom Nour had once led were really loyal to Deby at a time when the government army was battling rebels in the east of the landlocked country.
"We could not understand why he went to take refuge in an embassy of a friendly country," he said.
Mr Deby himself has been directing combat operations by the government army this week against rebels from another insurgent group, the Union of Forces for Democracy and Development (UFDD), which abandoned a month-old peace accord a week ago.
Mr Nour's position had been tenuous since last month, when former rebel fighters loyal to him deserted from the army and were involved in ethnic clashes with a rival community on Chad's eastern border with Sudan's violent Darfur region.
The former members of the rebel United Front for Democratic Change (FUC), which Nour once commanded, come from the Tama ethnic group. They had been resisting efforts to disarm them by the government army and militia from Mr Deby's own Zaghawa ethnic clan.
Chadian troops and ex-FUC fighters clashed on Friday at Guereda, an eastern border town in the Tama heartland, residents said. Several people were reported killed or injured.