SUMMARY
MPC (Mouvement patriotique pour la Centrafrique, Patriotic Movement for the Central African Republic) was a rebel group in the Central African Republic (CAR), formed in July 2015 as a breakaway from the FPRC. Its founding assembly was held in Kaga-Bandoro, where the movement was presented in early August 2015. It was a predominantly Muslim group, led and dominated by Chadian Arabs but also including a large contingent of Fulani herders and fighters from the Chad border region. It was founded by Mahamat Bahar, who had been head of military intelligence under President Michel Djotodia, after a falling-out within the FPRC leadership, though Bahar was sidelined within months and the movement's dominant figure became its military commander, Mahamat Al-Khatim, a Chadian Arab of the Salamat group who had himself been a senior FPRC commander.
MPC presented itself as a protector of Muslim pastoralist communities and of Central Africans of Chadian origin, but it had little distinct ideology of its own. As a breakaway from the FPRC, it inherited its parent group's territorial incompatibility. It operated in the north-central and northern prefectures. The group financed itself by taxing markets and the cattle trade, providing paid protection to herders, and running roadblocks, and it later drew revenue from mining.
In UCDP data, MPC was active as a distinct actor mainly between 2015 and 2020, on a smaller scale than the larger ex-Séléka groups. Most of its recorded fighting was against the anti-Balaka and other armed groups, and it killed several dozen civilians in one-sided violence.
The movement was prone to internal division. In January 2017 it split between a political wing and Al-Khatim's military faction. On 25 September 2017 Mahamat Bahar was ousted and went on to found the MNLC (Mouvement national pour la libération de la Centrafrique), though reportedly rejoined the MPC in 2018.
MPC was a signatory to the Political Agreement for Peace and Reconciliation, known as the Khartoum Accord, signed on 6 February 2019, under which Al-Khatim was named a special military adviser to the prime minister's office before resigning later that year. In December 2020, MPC joined the Coalition of Patriots for Change (CPC), a new alliance formed to disrupt that month's elections and overthrow President Faustin-Archange Touadéra, and Al-Khatim ordered his fighters to take part in the failed January 2021 advance on Bangui, after which he fled to N'Djamena.
On 3 November 2023, Al-Khatim announced the MPC's withdrawal from the CPC and his intention to return to dialogue under the Khartoum process, though some of his commanders rejected the move and the group was by then much depleted by desertions. On 19 November 2025, the MPC signed a new Chad-mediated peace agreement with the government in N'Djamena, agreeing to a ceasefire, to end its activities in three prefectures, to withdraw its fighters, and to enter a disarmament process, weeks before the December 2025 elections.
FPRC (Front populaire pour la renaissance de la Centrafrique, Popular Front for the Rebirth of the Central African Republic), established in July 2014, was a predominantly Muslim rebel group in the Central African Republic (CAR), drawn from the former Séléka and based in the northeast. The Séléka was an alliance of mostly northern, Muslim rebel groups, united by their opposition to President François Bozizé, that seized power in 2013 and installed its leader, Michel Djotodia, as president. Djotodia proved unable to control the disparate alliance, and on 13 September 2013 he dissolved it by decree and declared the Forces armées centrafricaines the country's sole legitimate armed force. The groups that had made up the alliance thereafter became known as the ex-Séléka.
FPRC was constituted at a congress of ex-Séléka factions held in Birao on 9 and 10 July 2014. Djotodia, then in exile, was named its president, but the group's real driving force was Noureddine Adam, who held the defence and security portfolio and became its dominant leader. The group built a parallel administration across the northeast, with its own police, prisons, and taxation of markets, transit, mining, and livestock. It failed, however, to keep all the ex-Séléka factions together. Ali Darassa broke away in late 2014 to form the UPC; Mahamat al-Khatim left in 2015 to create the MPC; and in November 2014 a group of commanders, including the FPRC military chief Joseph Zoundeiko and Zacharia Damane, founded the rival RPRC.
On 14 December 2015, after boycotting that month's constitutional referendum and elections, the FPRC declared the establishment of the autonomous Republic of Logone, also known as Dar el-Kuti, from Kaga-Bandoro, claiming the northeastern prefectures of Bamingui-Bangoran, Vakaga, and Haute-Kotto. The movement said it sought autonomy within the CAR with the eventual aim of full independence, a bid the transitional government and MINUSCA rejected. The declaration gave rise to the territorial Logone conflict. Government and Russian forces recaptured Kaga-Bandoro in April 2021, and the proto-state ceased to function.
FPRC's leader, Noureddine Adam, was the Séléka's number two and served briefly as Djotodia's minister of public security in 2013 before becoming an intelligence chief accused of grave abuses. He was placed under UN sanctions in 2014 over command responsibility for abuses and diamond trafficking, and in 2022 the International Criminal Court unsealed an arrest warrant against him for crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in 2013. He subsequently operated largely from Omdurman in Sudan. In UCDP data, the FPRC was active as a distinct actor from 2013 to 2020, during which it was a major perpetrator of one-sided violence and fought the anti-Balaka and rival ex-Séléka factions such as the UPC, the MPC, and the MLCJ. From 2020 its activities were recorded under the CPC.
FPRC was a signatory to the February 2019 Khartoum peace agreement, but it remained militarily active and lost its stronghold of Birao in 2019, failing to retake it in early 2020 when an attack on MINUSCA forces was repelled. The movement also split politically. On 17 December 2020, the faction led by Adam joined the Coalition of Patriots for Change (CPC), while a faction led by Abdoulaye Hissène aligned with the government and abandoned the armed struggle.
In August 2024, Adam and Ali Darassa of the UPC broke away from the CPC to form a rival coalition, the Coalition of Patriots for Change - Fundamental (CPC-F). Unlike most of the other armed groups, the FPRC under Adam did not join the 2025 peace process. When the UPC and the 3R signed a Chad-mediated ceasefire and were dissolved in July 2025, Adam rejected President Faustin-Archange Touadéra's public appeal to disarm, leaving the FPRC as the principal rebel group still in armed opposition to the government in the northeast.
