Sudan’s Anti-Terrorist Stance Questioned

A Sudanese opposition party Saturday condemned Sudan’s cooperation with the United States in Washington’s probe into the Sept. 11 attacks, saying Khartoum was trying to manipulate world opinion in its favor.

A statement faxed to the Reuters news service by the northern opposition Sudan Alliance Force accused the Sudanese government of seizing the U.S. war on terrorism to promote its self-interest.

“[The regime] is trying to convince world opinion, especially the United States after launching its war on international terrorism, that it has changed its terrorist tone and direction,” the statement said.

U.S.-Sudanese relations have steadily improved in recent months.

Washington has let the U.N. Security Council lift sanctions imposed for Khartoum’s alleged sheltering of militants who tried to assassinate Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in 1995.

The U.S. has also appointed a special envoy, former U.S. Sen. John C. Danforth, as part of its renewed efforts to end Sudan’s 18-year civil war. Sudan still remains on the U.S. list of states that sponsor terrorism.

The Sudan Alliance Force is a member of the National Democratic Alliance, an organization of opposition groups based in Cairo and Asmara, Eritrea’s capital. The umbrella group unites northern and southern factions opposed to the Islamist rule of President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir, who seized power in a 1989 military coup.

The National Democratic Alliance also includes the Sudan’s People’s Liberation Army, a southern rebel group that launched the civil war in 1983.

That group was seeking greater autonomy for the mainly animist and Christian south from the Muslim Arab north.