Chad rebels say they shot down government plane

N'DJAMENA, Nov 28 (Reuters) - Chadian rebels said today they shot down a government military plane with a captured ground-to-air missile in fighting near the eastern town of Abeche, which they briefly seized at the weekend.

''The plane was shot down by a missile launched by our forces. It was attacking our positions,'' Mahamat Nouri, leader of the rebel Union of Forces for Democracy and Development (UFDD), told Reuters by satellite telephone.

A military source in Chad said a plane appeared to be missing in action after it failed to return to the air base in Abeche after a sortie on Tuesday morning, but he could not give any further details.

Chadian Defence ministry officials could not be reached for immediate comment.

Foreign diplomats said they believed the plane shot down was one of two aircraft, thought to be Italian-made Marquetti fighters, which Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi had made available to Chad's military in recent days to counter the rebel threat.

UFDD spokesman Ali Ahmat told Reuters the plane was shot down during fighting with government forces 40 km (25 miles) west of Abeche. He said a government helicopter had also been shot down, but that claim could not immediately be confirmed.

Nouri, a former defence minister who has turned against President Idriss Deby, said his men shot down the plane at around 1030 hrs IST with an anti-aircraft missile.

''It was a SAM-7 missile which we took from Abeche at the weekend,'' Nouri said.

He said the aircraft had been bombing UFDD positions in the region of Abeche, the main town in eastern Chad which the UFDD occupied for 24 hours on Saturday before government forces re-established control.

Abeche is a major base for Chad's armed forces and is also used by a French military contingent, including a squadron of Mirage fighters, stationed in the central African country.

The city is also the hub of a massive international aid effort to help more than 200,000 Sudanese refugees who have fled violence in neighbouring Sudan's Darfur region.

The weekend attack on Abeche triggered panic in the capital N'Djamena, hundreds of kilometres (miles) to the west, after France, the former colonial power in Chad, warned its citizens a rebel convoy was advancing towards the city.

But France later played down the threat, and the government said the capital was in no danger.

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