After this weekend’s attack by the main Darfur rebel faction, the Islamist JEM (Justice and Equality Movement) on Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, Sudan’s government seems rattled and have once more arrested the country’s leading Islamist, Dr. Hassan Al-Turabi.
In theory, an Islamist victory in Sudan should end the suffering in Darfur, which is the political heartland of the Islamist rebellion there.
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The Darfur rebel leader Khalil Ibrahim said Monday that he would instigate more attacks on Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, until the government fell.
“This is just the start of a process, and the end is the termination of this regime,” Ibrahim, whose Justice and Equality Movement attacked Khartoum over the weekend, said in an interview. “Don’t expect just one more attack. This is just the beginning.”
The weekend attack was the first time fighting had reached the capital in decades of conflict between the traditionally Arab-dominated central government and rebels from far-flung regions in the oil-producing nation.
Officials of President Omar Hassan al-Bashir’s government arrested the Islamist opposition leader Hassan al-Turabi and four top members of his party on Monday, aides said. Leaders of the Justice and Equality movement were supporters of Turabi in the past, but he denies backing the rebels.
Turabi’s son said security forces had arrested his father at his home about an hour after returning from a conference of his Popular Congress Party in the state of Sennar.
“They want to blame the party for what has happened,” said Siddig al-Turabi. About 65 people were believed to have been killed in the attack.
Turabi was Bashir’s ideologue until they split in a bitter power struggle in 1999-2000. Since then he has been in and out of jail, but he was released along with all other political prisoners after a 2005 a peace deal between north and south.
No immediate comment was available from the government on Ibrahim’s vow of more attacks or Turabi’s arrest.
On Sunday, Sudan cut diplomatic relations with neighboring Chad, saying the attack by the rebels from the western Darfur region had been supported by the president of Chad, Idriss Déby.
The rebels made a lightning advance across 600 kilometers, or 400 miles, of desert and scrub to attack Khartoum’s western Omdurman suburb on Saturday in what one of their leaders called a bid for power. Officials said the last rebels had fled on Sunday evening.
In a television broadcast, Bashir accused Ibrahim, who is from the same tribe as Déby, of being behind the attack.
Chad has denied involvement, but analysts say it may have backed the Justice and Equality Movement rebels to retaliate for an attack on the Chadian capital three months ago.
Rebels in Sudan have for decades complained of neglect by the central government.
The north-south peace deal ended one civil war in 2005 and bolstered Sudan’s economy by increasing oil production in the south, but that agreement did not cover the conflict that erupted in Darfur five years ago.
International experts estimate that more than 200,000 people have been killed and that 2.5 million have been made homeless in Darfur since mostly non-Arab rebels took up arms.
Government officials said the attack on Khartoum ruled out participation by the Justice and Equality Movement in any peace process.
A curfew remained in force on the outskirts of Omdurman, as troops hunted down rebels. Military checkpoints were at every major junction.
Heavy tanks lined Omdurman’s streets, and dozens of vehicles carrying armed men raced around. Security forces were arresting mostly young men who looked to be from Darfur.
Chadian officials said they were surprised at Sudan’s “hasty decision” to cut ties and hoped they would be re-established.
Déby and Bashir signed a nonaggression pact in March. Each has accused the other of breaking the deal.