Sudan’s Army Beats Back Rebel Attack on Capital

(Khartoum, Sudan. May 09,  2008 Ceegaag Online)

Darfurian rebels staged a bold attack on Saturday, advancing to within a few miles of the center of Sudan’s capital, Khartoum.

By nightfall, it seemed that government forces had beaten them back, but only after declaring a citywide curfew, deploying attack helicopters and hundreds of troops and essentially shutting down the city.

“Let there be no mistake about it, everything is under control,” said Rabie A. Atti, a government spokesman. “The rebels didn’t succeed. We have them surrounded. They are now running away from us.”

The conflict in Darfur, a desiccated region of western Sudan hundreds of miles from Khartoum, has been raging on and off for years. But the attack on Saturday was the first time major fighting from this conflict spilled into the capital’s suburbs, a possible sign of rising instability to come.

Leaders of the Justice and Equality Movement, one of the bigger rebel groups, quickly claimed a victory.

“Our forces are everywhere in the capital,” a London-based rebel spokesman, Ahmed Hussein Adam, told Agence France-Presse by telephone.

However, a Western aid worker who lives in central Khartoum said things were quiet. “There’s nothing obvious I can see,” said the aid worker, who was not authorized to speak publicly. “The streets are empty. Everyone has gone home. It’s just a quiet night.”

An American official in Sudan said that the operation involved approximately 3,000 rebel fighters and that some Sudanese soldiers had defected to rebel ranks.

“Was this a coup? I wouldn’t go that far,” said the American official, who was not authorized to speak publicly. “But this was a serious incursion. There was infiltration and there were internal divisions. Otherwise, the rebels wouldn’t have gotten this far.”

The American official said there were credible reports that the Sudanese government had arrested several mid-level military officers, most of them originally from Darfur, and that government officials were “scared to death” about the prospect of a coup d’état.

Mr. Rabie said the skirmishes were confined to Northern Omdurman, a Khartoum suburb along the marshy banks of the Nile River. Residents said they heard heavy, continuous shelling and saw rebel pick up trucks burning in the streets.

“We never expected this, not here,” said Selma Suleman, one of the residents. “People are scared.”

Mr. Rabie said the trouble started several days ago when security forces intercepted a large column of rebel fighters cutting across the desert from Darfur toward the capital.

“We attacked them and killed many of their fighters,” he said.

He said most of the rebels had been stopped about 125 miles west of the capital. However, he said, a small band of rebel fighters escaped and were able to penetrate Khartoum’s suburbs.

Even so, it could mark a turn in the Darfur conflict, which has killed as many as 300,000 people, according to recent United Nations estimates. So far the fighting has been confined to remote sandy stretches with few witnesses and far from Sudan’s economic core.

The Darfurian rebels have said they are fighting to address a long history of neglect in their region. The government has responded with intense aerial bombing campaigns and by arming militias to fight the rebels.

It is widely believed that the rebels cannot beat the well-armed government forces toe-to-toe, unless the government security forces split and soldiers defect in large numbers.

Rebel leaders said Saturday that some Sudanese military commanders had done exactly that, but the government denied it, and there was no independent confirmation of a division.