John Daniszewski in Cairo
SUDANESE rebels claimed this week to have killed hundreds of government troops and pushed to within 65km of a key hydroelectric dam in a mushrooming military campaign to topple Sudan’s Islamic government, long criticised internationally as a sponsor of global terrorism.
The offensive that began two weeks ago has spread quickly along a 650km front, raising questions about whether an alliance between Arabic-speaking Islamic opposition groups from the north and black African rebels that believe in Christianity and traditional religions from the south will spark a mass uprising against Sudanese President Omar Bashir and the country’s unofficial leader, speaker of the Parliament, Hassan Turabi.
The Khartoum government, shocked by the sudden threat, blames its predicament on an international plot by the United States, Israel, Eritrea and Ethiopia that it says is aimed not only against Sudan but against Islam itself. It has called upon large numbers of volunteers to rush to the fronts in the east and south of the country, while last week launching urgent appeals across the Arab world for help.
But Sudan’s special envoy to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak went away disappointed, with Mubarak calling the fighting an “internal affair”, not a foreign invasion as Khartoum contends.
Adding political pressure this week, Sadek Mahdi, the ousted Sudanese prime minister who recently made a clandestine escape from Khartoum, called for a popular uprising and encouraged the army and police to defect. – Los Angeles Times