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 A Chadian official declared the fighting a "direct war" with the Sudanese president
-- repeating claims that Sudan is backing the rebels, while a rebel chief insisted that they were ready to launch a new offensive into the capital where they battled army forces Saturday before drawing back Sunday.
The death toll was not known, but more than 1,000 were reported wounded, and nearly half of the 700,000 residents of the capital were said to have fled. Bodies lay on the streets of N'Djamena, and the hulks of burned out tanks and other vehicles stood abandoned.
The fighting in Chad has threatened to further destabilize an already violent swath of Africa that borders Sudan's war-ravaged Darfur region. On Monday, the U.N. Security Council authorized France and other nations to help Chad's government. France has 1,800 soldiers backed by fighter jets in its former colony.
High-level officials and diplomats from the Republic of Congo and Libya were to arrive Tuesday on an African Union mediation mission, the republic's Foreign Affairs Minister Basile Ikouebe said Monday in Brazzaville. They would meet with both sides, and France had agreed to protect the mediators, he said.
Gunshots continued to sound around N'Djamena on Tuesday, but the rebels appeared to be holding back around the edge of the city, French military spokesman Capt. Christophe Prazuck said.
"There has been sporadic shooting, but no combat," Prazuck said.
Rebel chief Mahamat Nouri told French radio Europe-1 that French aircraft had been firing on the rebels from Sunday night until early Tuesday.
"It's French aviation that is bombarding us," he said. Nouri said the rebels were ready to launch a new offensive and said they would be in a position to take the capital except for the French army.
Prazuck said there was "not the slightest reality" to the charge, saying the French removed all their planes from N'Djamena early Sunday to protect them and that the only aircraft they had in the area were helicopters used to protect convoys or in evacuations.
"We have never participated in the fighting between the rebels and the government forces," he added.
Prazuck said French forces had not changed their mission -- to secure the safety of foreigners and offer noncombat support to the Chadian military such as logistical, medical and intelligence help.
Chadian officials have repeatedly accused Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir of supporting the rebels, and even deploying Sudanese troops in rebel offensives in eastern Chad.
"We are in direct war with Omar Bashir," Gen. Mahamat Ali Abdallah Nassour said Tuesday on Radio France Internationale. "It is Omar al-Bashir who wants to destabilize and Balkanize Chad."
The U.S. asked Sudan to halt any possible aid to the rebels and use its influence "to tell them to withdraw," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Monday. Ikouebe said the mediators also would be talking to Sudan.
Some 1,000-1,500 insurgents equipped with pickup trucks mounted with machine guns arrived on the city's outskirts Friday after a three-day push across the desert from Chad's eastern border with Sudan. They entered the city early Saturday, reportedly trapping President Idriss Deby in his palace.
Government soldiers launched a fierce counterattack Sunday, strafing rebel positions with helicopter gunships and bombarding them with tank cannons. By early Monday, the rebels had pulled back, insisting it was a tactical withdrawal to give civilians a chance to get away. The battle resumed in the afternoon.
The death toll was not known, but "probably many people were injured or killed," Prazuck said. "The fighting was heavy, the weapons used were heavy."
More than 1,000 people have been wounded in recent days, the Red Cross said Tuesday.
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 Anna Schaaf, a spokeswoman for the International Committee of the Red Cross, told reporters in Geneva that the group's staff had not been able to move around the N'Djamena over the weekend so the assessment made yesterday was likely only a partial picture.
A Libyan military cargo plane Tuesday evacuated dozens of wounded Chadians in civilian clothes, watched by an AP reporter. A Chadian soldier said the plane was taking them for treatment in Tripoli.
About 300,000 of N'Djamena's 700,000 people have fled across the Chari River into Cameroon, said Levourne Passiri, Chad director for U.S. charity World Vision. "They are now occupying local schools or just resting under trees. They have no real shelter, no food and no water," he said.
Near the border town of Kousseri alone, as many as 20,000 have crossed over into Cameroon since Saturday, according to the U.N.
"As of this morning, frightened people were still crossing in a continuous flow," Ron Redmond, a spokesman for the U.N. refugee agency told reporters in Geneva.
French soldiers used armored vehicles to evacuate French nationals and other foreigners over the weekend. About 1,000 foreigners had been evacuated by Tuesday, with 245 remaining under French protection at their military camp or other protected sites, Prazuck said.
Human Rights Watch said it had reports that Chadian security forces were detaining political opposition leaders, "using the fighting as a pretext for settling scores with the unarmed opposition," according to acting Africa director, Georgette Gagnon.
She recalled that her group documented abuses by Chadian security forces in the aftermath of a 2006 rebel offensive, including summary executions of civilians suspected of rebel affiliations.
The violence endangers a $300 million global aid operation supporting millions in Chad. The U.N.'s World Food Program said it could disrupt delivery of food to 420,000 Darfur refugees and Chadians displaced by violence.
At the United Nations, the Security Council strongly condemned the rebel attack and called "upon member states to provide support" to Chad's government.
Before the council acted, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said France and the European Union could send troops with U.N. approval. "We must avoid a conflict in Chad, by supporting the legitimate government," Sarkozy said. "In no region should weapons be a way to come to power."
Deby himself rose to power just as the rebels are trying to, heading an insurgent force that captured N'Djamena in 1990. He has won two elections since then, neither considered free or fair, but has enjoyed strong French support.
The rebels are a coalition of three groups whose leaders include Mahamat Nouri, a former defense minister, and Timan Erdimi, a nephew of Deby who was his chief of staff. They accuse Deby of corruption and embezzling millions in oil revenue.
The E.U. foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, said Monday the fighting would not stop the deployment of 3,700 peacekeepers tasked to protect refugees along the volatile border with Darfur.
[Associated
Press; By TOM MALITI]
Associated Press writers John Leicester in Paris, Alexander G. Higgins and Frank Jordans in Geneva, Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations and Matthew Rosenberg, Michelle Faul and Heidi Vogt in Nairobi contributed to this report.
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