Battle of Maaten al - Sarra The battle of Maaten al - Sarra was a battle fought between Chad and Libya on September 5 , 1987 during the Toyota War . The battle took the form of a surprise Chadian raid against the Libyan Maaten al - Sarra Air Base , meant to remove the threat of Libyan airpower , that had already thwarted the Chadian attack on the Aouzou Strip in August . The first clash ever held in Libyan territory since the beginning of the Chadian - Libyan conflict , the attack was fully successful , causing a high number of Libyan casualties and low Chadian casualties , also contributing to the definitive ceasefire signed on September 11 among the warring countries . Background . In 1983 , Libyan troops invaded Chad in support of the rebel Transitional Government of National Unity ( GUNT ) fighting against the Chadian government led by Hissène Habré . French military interventions had limited the Libyan - GUNT advance to the 16th parallel ( the so - called Red Line ) , freezing the situation on the ground until 1986 , when the bulk of the GUNT forces turned against their Libyan patrons . Habré seized upon the opportunity to turn the tide against his enemy , and ordered his troops in December to attack Libyan positions in northern Chad . Starting in January 1987 with Fada and continuing with B ' ir Kora and Ouadi Doum , the Chadian National Armed Forces ' ( FANT ) commander - in - chief Hassan Djamous reported a series of key victories that forced Libyan forces to fall back on the Aouzou Strip . Ignoring French pleas for restraint , Habré assumed a militant attitude towards the Libyan occupation of the Aouzou Strip ; his troops successfully took Aouzou on August 8 , but were repulsed on August 28 , partly due to French refusal to provide air cover for Habré ' s attempt to regain Aouzou . Attack . Before the final Libyan assault , Habré had withdrawn Hassan Djamous and most of his veteran troops , planning to let them rest for a new offensive that would finally secure the Strip . Habré , judging by the decisive role played by close - range Libyan air strikes in the setback at Aouzou , concluded that Libya ' s greatest advantage was its ability to conduct endless air strikes . To remove this threat , Habré ordered Djamous to take 2 , 000 troops and destroy the main Libyan airbase in southern Libya , Maaten al - Sarra , 60 miles north of the Chadian - Libyan border . Habré may also have been encouraged in this raid by French President François Mitterrand ' s public declaration on September 3 that the Red Line was obsolete and thus French troops in Chad would no longer be bound by it . Chad made military preparations for what seemed to be an attempt to retake Aouzou . Instead , encouraged by the United States , which supplied satellite intelligence , the FANT attacked Maaten al - Sarra on September 5 , taking the Libyans by surprise , and apparently the French as well , who reacted by refusing to provide intelligence or logistic support . Djamous ' s troops were careful to follow the wadi s , thus not exposing themselves , and they also took advantage of careless Libyan patrolling and security , intending to take the airbase ' s garrison and its defenders by surprise . To confuse the Libyans , the FANT forces first proceeded north and northwest in Libyan territory , then turned east and descended upon Maaten al - Sarra ; as a result , the Libyan officers took them for reinforcements and attempted to join them . Notwithstanding the defenders ' 2 , 500 - strong garrison , tank brigade , artillery and extensive fortifications , the Chadian troops rapidly overcame the Libyan forces and assumed control of the base , starkly revealing the professional incompetence of the Libyan military . While the FANT ' s losses were minor , Libya suffered staggering casualties , with 1 , 713 Libyans killed , 300 taken prisoner and hundreds of others forced to flee into the surrounding desert . The Chadians then proceeded to demolish all the equipment they could not carry back , including 70 tanks , 30 APCs , 8 radar stations , a radar scrambling device , numerous SAMs , and 26 aircraft — including 3 MiG - 23 s , 1 Mi - 24 , and 4 Mirages ; they also tore up the base ' s two runways . Then , traveling without lights beneath the moon and stars , the FANT column withdrew to Chadian soil on September 6 , and the Chadian government declared that the battle " must be written in gold letters in the great book of victories . " Aftermath . Gaddafi ' s first reaction was to place the blame for the defeat on the French , challenging their position in Chad . A couple of days after Djamous ' raid on Maaten two Tu - 22 were dispatched , one to attack N ' Djamena , the Chadian capital , and other to Abéché ; the air raid was unsuccessful , as the Tupolev attacking the capital was shot down by a French Army Hawk SAM battery , while the second plane was forced to return to Libya without dropping its bombs . Libya ' s reaction to the downing was to publicly accuse the Maaten raid of being a " combined Franco - American military action " , and added that France and the United States were " behind the aggression against Libya . " While the United States did not conceal its satisfaction for the Libyan defeat , a US official adding that " We basically jump for joy every time the Chadians ding the Libyans " , France reacted differently , with the Defence Minister André Giraud expressing " deepest regrets " over the escalation . The French appeared to have judged the battle of Maaten al - Sarra even too successful for Habré , giving way to concerns that the battle was only the first stage of a general invasion of Libya , a thing that France wanted to avoid at all costs ; therefore , on September 11 Mitterrand pressed Habré in agreeing to a ceasefire with Gaddafi , the Libyan leader accepting due to internal demoralization and foreign hostility . While the ceasefire was subject to many minor violations , it substantially held , thus putting an end to the Chadian - Libyan conflict . However , the defeat also caused Gaddafi ' s simmering animosity against France and the United States which culminated in Libyan support for the bombings of Pan Am Flight 103 from London to New York over Lockerbie , Scotland on 21 December 1988 and UTA Flight 772 from Chad to Paris over Niger on 19 September 1989 .