"We have taken total control of the situation. We have pushed the rebels back across the border to Sudan," Defence Minister Bichara Issa Djadallah told AFP.

A rebel spokesman said his side's forces had withdrawn to the outskirts of the town to avoid civilian casualties. He claimed around 100 pro-government troops were killed along with 13 fighters of the rebel coalition.

"After four hours of violent fighting, Deby's troops were completely destroyed," said Ali Moussa Izzo, spokesman for the Union of Forces for Democracy and Development (UFDD), by satellite phone.

"There is no more fighting but we still hold the approaches to the town," he claimed. He described the withdrawal as a "tactical retreat" and promised further operations "in the coming days."

The government claimed it had taken a number of rebels prisoner.

Chad's Foreign Minister Ahmat Allami accused neighbouring Sudan of inspiring and supporting the rebel offensive.

"These subversive forces present themselves as a rebel movement, while they are being manipulated by Khartoum to further its expansionist and racist policy in Darfur and eastern Chad," Allami said.

"The attack on Adre has certainly been repulsed but we are under obligation, in exercising our legitimate right to defend our population, to pursue our attackers to their last hiding place in Sudan if necessary," Allami told diplomats.

Fighting flared in eastern Chad in late 2005. Since then rebels seeking to topple Deby have on several occasions attacked Adre, Abeche and other locations near the Sudanese border before being pushed back by the army.

Thursday's attack was the first since early December when the government claimed to have wiped out the rebels in a battle at Hadjer Marfain, north of Adre.

Chad and Sudan accuse each other of supporting and harbouring rebel movements. United Nations agencies and non-governmental organisations trying to help about 90,000 displaced Chadian villagers and 232,000 Darfur refugees in eastern Chad have voiced grave concerns about the conflict in Darfur spilling across the border.

Following independence from France in 1960, Chad endured three decades of ethnic warfare and invasions by Libya.

A semblance of peace was restored in 1990, when Deby ousted dictator Hissene Habre, who is facing trial in Senegal for crimes committed by his regime.

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