Nation & World

<< Previous   of   Next >>   ADVERTISEMENT   CONTACT THE HERALD Do you have a news tip? newstips@heraldnet.com | 425.339.3400   Published: Sunday, May 11, 2008 Sudan repels Darfur rebels' attack on Khartoum The Washington Post NAIROBI, Kenya -- Darfur rebels launched an unprecedented attack on the Sudanese capital of Khartoum on Saturday, crossing hundreds of miles of desert in an attempt to overthrow the government of President Omar Bashir, according to Sudanese officials. Within a few hours, however, the Sudanese government said the attempt had been crushed. State television broadcast pictures of bloodied bodies in the streets and confessions from prisoners who appeared to have been badly beaten. Sudanese officials immediately accused neighboring Chad of backing the rebels. The Sudanese government has waged a brutal, five-year campaign against several rebel groups and civilians in the country's western Darfur region, where hundreds of thousands of people have been killed. For the most part, the fighting has been confined to that area. But the rebel Justice and Equality Movement, or JEM, has frequently vowed to take the war to the capital, which has been spared the fighting that has devastated other parts of the country in recent decades. On Saturday, the rebel group said that the attack was not over and that it had received "internal support," a claim echoed by a U.S. source in the region who had received reports that Sudanese soldiers had joined the rebels along with other indications of fresh divisions within Bashir's government. If confirmed, the reports would represent a far more troubling scenario than a rebel attack, which analysts have long said would be doomed against Sudan's military. Besides being highly unpopular across Sudan, with complaints of oppression and neglect by a government flush with oil money, Bashir has struggled to maintain political alliances within his inner circle and has crushed nascent coup plots in recent years. Bashir contends with the questionable loyalties of a Sudanese army dominated by soldiers from Darfur, where his government has drawn international condemnation. "The facts on the ground suggest there is something internal," said the U.S. official. "We don't know the extent of what it is or how far it has gone." The U.S. source cited reports that fighters wearing Sudanese army uniforms were among the rebels and that the rebels used heavy weapons to shoot down a Sudanese helicopter. In addition, several Sudanese military officials had been arrested Friday night. Bashir, who has ruled Sudan since 1989, was in Saudi Arabia. The attack marked the first time in decades that fighting has breached Khartoum, a sprawling, sand-blown city of donkey carts and new avant-garde hotels on the banks of the Nile. Saturday evening, the sound of heavy fighting came from Omdurman, a suburb of Khartoum, and helicopters and army trucks headed toward the area, according to a ­Reuters reporter in the capital. Earlier in the day, rebels said they had taken control of Omdurman and would not relent until they had pushed into the center of Khartoum. "The international community has failed to protect our people, and now we are in a position to do it," said Tahir Elfaki, chairman of the JEM legislative council, speaking from London as he headed to Libya, which, along with the government of Chad, is a main rebel group backer. "We are not going to stop until this regime is removed once and for all."

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