A four-star general who is a son of Chad President Idriss Deby Itno will take over as the head of a military council in the country.

 The Chadian Army spokesman, General Azem Bermandoa Agouna on Tuesday announced that Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno will govern for the next 18 months.

Though he will lead the council, "free and democratic" elections will be held once the transition period is over, the army said in its statement.

Ahead of the election on 11 April, Déby campaigned on a platform of bringing peace and security to the region.

But there has been growing unhappiness over his government's management of Chad's oil resources.

Chad’s newly re-elected President Idriss Deby Itno, in power for three decades, died Tuesday aged 68 of injuries while fighting rebels in the north of the Sahel country, the army said Tuesday.

The army had on Monday announced that fighting left some 300 rebels of the Front for Change and Concord in Chad dead, while FACT claimed in a statement that Deby had been wounded – a report that official sources could not confirm.

Deby “has just breathed his last defending the sovereign nation on the battlefield” over the weekend, army spokesman General Azem Bermandoa Agouna said in a statement read out on state television.

The career military man who seized power in the former French colony on the back of a 1990 coup had been declared re-elected late Monday with nearly 80 percent of the vote late Monday.

Ministers and high-ranking military brass had said Monday that Deby was in the region on Saturday and Sunday after rebels launched an offensive from rear bases in Libya on the day of the election, April 11.

The result was never in serious doubt, with a divided opposition, boycott calls, and a campaign in which demonstrations were banned or dispersed.

(AFP)