Hissène Habré

Hissène Habré was born on August 13, 1942, in Faya-Largeau. Educated in political science and law at Sciences Po in Paris, Habré formed the Armed Forces of the North (FAN), becoming a formidable guerrilla commander in the rugged Tibesti mountains.

Seizing power in 1982, Habré led the dramatic 1987 'Toyota War', where Chadian soldiers equipped with four-wheel-drive pickup trucks armed with anti-tank missiles outmaneuvered heavily armored Libyan tank divisions at the Battle of Fada and Wadi Doum, restoring Chadian territorial integrity over the Aouzou Strip. Deposed in 1990 by Idriss Déby, he was later tried by an African Union-backed court in Dakar in 2016 for human rights atrocities, dying in Senegal in 2021.