city did cause the troops to react: they secured the city's key-points (the airport, the embassy, the power station) and evacuated its 1250 western civilians. With Déby in power, while Franco-Chadian relations remained good, those with Libya deteriorated considerably. Gaddafi sent a request to Déby for the deportation to Libya of the Haftar force, composed of former Libyan troops that had deserted. However, a secret joint operation to bring the troops to Nigeria was orchestrated by the CIA and components of Operation Épervier. Despite this failure, Chadian–Libyan relations remained good, and the last issues among the two countries were resolved in 1994 by the International Court of Justice of The Hague, that gave the Aouzou Strip to Chad. The operation's key roles since have been logistical support in the restructuring and reduction of the Chadian army, that was reduced from 40,000 to 25,000 men, and in making possible the presidential election of 1996. Actions like the former helped the French authorities justify their presence in the country: when Amnesty International questioned them in April 1996 on this continued presence, the official answer was that Opération Épervier was being used to assist the democratic process in Chad, and also as an internal and external deterrent. In theory, Operation Épervier, originally created to contain Libyan expansionism, should have come to an end with the settlement of all issues among the two countries; but Chad came to be seen as the "French aircraft carrier of the desert", of key strategic importance as one of the five countries (the others were Djibouti, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Gabon) with a continuing French military presence in August 2002. In that period Operation Épervier could count on 951 men, deployed in the bases of Hadji Kossei near N'Djamena and that of Croci next to Abéché. New Sudanese threat, 2000s The threat represented by Sudan and its proxies had already brought the French forces to increase their units to 1,200 troops based near N'Djamena to protect the Chadian President Idriss Déby's administration in the event of a large scale attack by the United Front for Democratic Change rebels or an invasion by their chief tactical and financial supporters, the Sudanese military. French involvement, which increased by 300 troops in April 2006, further complicates the Chadian–Sudanese conflict. Air support at this time consisted of six Mirage F1 fighters, three tactical transport planes, two Breguet reconnaissance planes and three Puma helicopters.