rightful possessor of the Aouzou strip remained open, and when Habré occupied Aouzou on August 8, the French contingent was once again involved. On August 25, Gaddafi's forces bombed Faya-Largeau, where a French parachute regiment was stationed, but damage was minimal. Habré started new offensive, on September 7 a Tupolev Tu-22 was sent to bomb the capital, but the aircraft was destroyed by the French Army MIM-23 Hawk battery. A simultaneous Libyan attack on Abéché was more successful, if not very effective, owing to the inadequacy of the French Air Force SAM Crotale battery recently deployed. France decided not to react to these attacks, to prevent an escalation. On September 11, the Chadian and Libyan governments accept a ceasefire mediated by the OAU, which put an end to the conflict. While long negotiations between the two parties started, the French continued to fortify their positions in Chad, including completion of an air strip at Abéché in September. The French started assuming humanitarian tasks, such as mine-clearing in northern Chad; it was during one of these missions that Operation Épervier reported on its first loss on January 14, 1988. The Chadian–Libyan conflict officially came to an end in October 1988, when Chad resumed formal diplomatic relations with Libya, in accordance with recommendations made by the OAU. As a result, the French contingent started decreasing in size. Cost was another reason for a decrease in France's military presences: in 1987 alone, Operation Épervier had cost France 1,700,000 French francs. In 1989 the number of men deployed to Chad had fallen to 1,000, and many minor bases had been dismantled. New president in Chad, 1990s Habré was an indirect victim of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The diminished importance of Africa for French policy also brought France to become more critical of Habré's bad human rights record. Habré moved to free himself from French tutelage by seeking friendship with the United States. Relations between Paris and N'Djamena diminished, to the point that the French decided to remain neutral in the conflict that started in April 1989 between the President and his former general Idriss Déby. Déby promised not to attack the French base at Abéché, and in his march to the capital was followed by an officer of the DGSE, Paul Fontbonne. Déby occupied the Chadian capital on 3 December 1990, with the French maintaining themselves neutral. The increasing pillaging in the