AFRICA: Ndjamena arrests follow Chad 'failed coup'

Several people including an opposition MP have been arrested in the Chad capital Ndjamena, in what the government has described as an attempted "destabilisation plot".

A government statement said a "small group" had been conspiring for more than four months.
Leaders of the alleged plot were being investigated by prosecutors, it added.
Chad has a long history of coups and revolts. Current President Idriss Deby himself seized power in a coup in 1990.
"A small group of ill-intentioned individuals attempted to carry out a destabilisation plot against the institutions of the republic," the government said.
It said that the country's security forces "neutralised" them, without specifying how many people were involved in the alleged action.
Police and opposition sources said opposition MP Saleh Makki was among those held.
The security services also carried out a number of arrests in the army, military sources told Reuters news agency.
Since its independence from France in 1960, Chad's history has been marked by instability and violence stemming mostly from tension between the mainly Arab-Muslim north and the predominantly Christian and animist south.
Earlier this year, Chad deployed some 2,000 troops to help oust Islamists who had seized large swathes of territory in Mali.