Security forces carried out a major search operation on Sunday in Chad, where authorities accused a group of soldiers of attempting a coup against President Idriss Deby earlier this year.

Troops in the central African country searched areas of the capital N’djamena at 4 a.m. (0300 GMT), the government said, and a witness reported a heavier than usual security presence near the presidential palace at around that time. The witness told Reuters he had been carefully searched by armed members of the security forces.

The city appeared to return to normal after the operation with no obvious signs of stepped-up security at key sites. The country’s mobile phone network was out of action on Sunday morning but started working again later in the day. “The government informs and reassures the population that this operation is part of the fight against insecurity and asks for understanding for any inconvenience caused,” an official statement said. The searches yielded several military weapons, handguns, ammunition and communications equipment, the government said.

Authorities said in May they had put down an attempted mutiny at an army barracks. Deby said a few days later the soldiers had been planning to kill him because they were angry at a crackdown on corruption in the army.

Despite the prospect of oil wealth since a major project led by US oil major ExxonMobil started pumping crude from the south of Chad in mid-2003, the former French colony remains one of the world’s poorest nations.

The arid country is also struggling with the influx of some 180,000 refugees fleeing fighting in neighbouring Sudan’s Darfur region. Deby is a former army chief who seized power in 1990. Parliament voted in May to change the constitution to allow him to seek a third term in an election due in 2006, although the amendment still has to be approved by a referendum.