Chad’s army dissolved government and parliament after announcing the death of longtime president Idriss Deby Itno on Tuesday, but vowed “free and democratic” elections following an 18-month transition period.

The army had earlier announced that one of Deby’s sons would replace him as the head of a military council following the death of the leader who had ruled the country with an iron fist for three decades.

Chad’s newly re-elected President Idriss Deby Itno, in power for three decades, died Tuesday aged 68 of injuries while fighting rebels in the north of the Sahel country, the army said Tuesday.

The army had on Monday announced that fighting left some 300 rebels of the Front for Change and Concord in Chad dead, while FACT claimed in a statement that Deby had been wounded – a report that official sources could not confirm.

Deby “has just breathed his last defending the sovereign nation on the battlefield” over the weekend, army spokesman General Azem Bermandoa Agouna said in a statement read out on state television.