 In 1986 the GUNT rebelled against Gaddafi , stripping Libya of its main cover of legitimacy for its military presence in Chad . Seeing an occasion to unify Chad behind him , Habré ordered his forces to pass the 16th parallel so as to link with the GUNT rebels ( who were fighting the Libyans in Tibesti ) in December . A few weeks later a bigger force struck at Fada , destroying the local Libyan garrison . In three months , combining the methods of guerilla and conventional warfare in a common strategy , Habré was able to retake almost all of northern Chad , and in the following months , inflicted new heavy defeats on the Libyans , until a ceasefire putting an end to the conflict was signed in September . The ceasefire left open the issue of the disputed Aouzou Strip , which was eventually assigned to Chad by the International Court of Justice in 1994 . 
