Sudan has arrested scores of Islamist militants from the party of detained opposition leader Hassan Turabi, accusing them of subversion and arms trafficking involving an unnamed neighbouring country.
Security forces nabbed Popular Congress party officials in overnight raids in the latest crackdown by the Khartoum government against its rivals, party sources said on Wednesday, without giving exact numbers.
Official Omdurman radio broadcast a statement from the Sudanese intelligence services saying the arrested suspects are accused of ”subversion” and of buying arms from a neighbouring country, which was not identified.
Some Sudanese newspapers reported what they termed ”an experimental security exercise” by police and other security forces in Khartoum state.
According to witnesses, police, army troops and security forces took positions at numerous checkpoints at crossroads and traffic lights, stopped and closely searched every passing vehicle.
A one-time mentor of President Omar al-Beshir, Turabi is awaiting trial on a raft of offences against the state, including incitement to sedition, sabotage and undermining the regime.
Turabi (74) is staging a hunger strike in protest at his house arrest at a remand home in Khartoum where he has been detained since his release from hospital last month.
He was first jailed in late March amid government allegations of a coup attempt by sympathisers of the ethnic minority rebels in Darfur, where fighting has led to what the United Nations is calling the world’s biggest humanitarian crisis.
Turabi had been increasingly critical of the scorched-earth policy adopted by the government in Darfur, where the UN says up to 50 000 have been killed and about 1,4-million left homeless by clashes between the rebels and state-sponsored Arab militia.
The UN Security Council passed a resolution at the end of July giving the government of Sudan 30 days to disarm and rein in the Arab militias behind a brutal crackdown on black Africans in the Darfur region.
Despite the resolution there appears to be little appetite on the Security Council for sanctions against Khartoum although the United States said it plans to put forward a new resolution on Wednesday aimed at pressing Sudan to bring an end to the bloodshed and suffering. — Sapa-AFP