Rebel Supply Base Seized, Sudan Says
A large rebel supply base in Upper Nile province near the Ethiopian border has been captured after three days of fighting, the official Sudan news agency SUNA said Thursday.
Quoting an authoritative military source, it said the base, near the town of Naser, was seized with the help of “friendly forces,” which it did not identify.
Western diplomats and southern politicians say the Anya-Nya 11, a guerrilla group which defected from the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) two years ago, has an estimated 15,000 men in the Upper Nile and is fighting alongside government troops.
The SUNA report said many rebels had been killed in the fighting and that others fled into Ethiopia. Large amounts of ammunition, arms and mines were seized, it said.
The rebels, who have been fighting government troops in the mainly Christian and Animist south of Sudan since 1983, want an end to what they see as the political and economic dominance by the Muslim north.
They also want the abrogation of sharia (Islamic law), introduced in 1983 by President Jaafar Numeiri, who was ousted in April, 1985.
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