Darfur rebels battle Sudan forces near capital

Darfur rebels from western Sudan took their five-year struggle to the doorstep of their country’s capital today, engaging government forces in gun battles on the outskirts of Khartoum.

The offensive by the Justice and Equality Movement, one of the main Darfur rebel groups, was not believed to represent a serious threat to Sudan’s government, but the fact that fighters got so close to Khartoum was seen as a political embarrassment that might encourage other anti-government groups to rise up.

By tonight, government officials had imposed a citywide curfew but said the rebels had been defeated. State television showed pictures of burned-out trucks and bodies, reportedly of rebel forces.

A JEM leader insisted that its forces would continue to fight to overthrow the Khartoum regime and said they were receiving support from other opposition militias in various parts of the country.

“People are joining us from all over,” Tahir Elfaki, head of the group’s legislative council, said in a telephone interview from London. As of this evening, gunfire was still being heard in the Khartoum suburb of Omdurman and smoke could be seen rising in several places.

Elfaki said the attack on Khartoum was designed to bring Darfur’s suffering to the heart of Sudan’s government. Although the crisis garners international attention, it is largely unreported in the capital.

“They government has tried to keep us occupied in western Sudan, but we have decided enough is enough,” Elfaki said. “We are going to deploy throughout the country.”

JEM, which is partly backed by the Chadian government, is considered the best-armed movement in Darfur, where an estimated 200,000 to 300,000 people have died in a conflict pitting the Khartoum regime against various rebel groups.

But experts questioned whether JEM forces could infiltrate the well-protected capital and take on Sudanese security forces.

“It looks like a suicide mission to me,” Safwat Fanous, a political scientist at University of Khartoum, said in a telephone interview. “If they need food or weapons, they are 1,000 kilometers away from their base in Darfur. They don’t have any air support. They don’t even have tanks, just armed Land Cruisers.”

One government official said the rebels had chiefly scored a public relations victory.

“It’s serious to the extent that they are making some real noise inside Khartoum,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “Their goal is to attract attention and get people here involved in a dramatic way.”

Anxious residents of Khartoum cleared the streets this afternoon as the government ordered all citizens to remain in their homes. Soldiers patrolled the streets and seized control of the airport.

“The whole downtown emptied in 10 minutes,” said Waleed Arafat Ali, a Khartoum travel agent.

Sudanese officials accused the government of Chad of backing the JEM assault as payback for Sudan’s alleged role in backing a similar rebel attack against Chad’s capital city, N’Djamena, earlier this year. Chadian forces, with support from the French army, rebuffed the attack.

 edmund.sanders@latimes.com