Gunmen suspected to be members of Boko Haram terrorists, on Wednesday night, launched a deadly attack on the presidential villa of Chad Republic.
The attack which occurred around 7pm in the night, resulted to a fierce gun battle that left 19 people dead, including 18 attackers and one military officer, according to Chad authorities.
The attackers, reportedly a 24-member commando unit, attempted to overrun the complex, but were overpowered by the security forces.
AFP reporters on the scene said they heard heavy shooting and observed tanks deployed on the streets as security forces quickly responded to the siege.
Moreover, Chad government in a statement confirmed the death toll and assured the general public that the situation was under control.
“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 Abderaman Koulamallah told AFP.
Though, hours after the botched attack, Koulamallah appeared in a video posted on Facebook, surrounded by soldiers and with a gun on his belt, saying “the situation is completely under control… the destabilisation attempt was put down”.
However, a security source said the attackers were members of the Boko Haram jihadist group, but Koulamallah later said they were “probably not” terrorists, describing them as drunken “Pieds Nickeles” — a reference to a French comic featuring hapless crooks.
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He said they attacked four guards before entering the presidential complex, where they were “easily overpowered”, adding the surviving assailants were “completely drugged”.
In a video of the attack sighted by Newsband Newspaper, the bodies of the gunmen were seen littered all over the presidential complex.
Also, three of the attackers who survived the onslaught were seen on the floor with their hands tied behind their back.
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.
