Darfur rebels attack in North Kordofan

Rebels from Sudan’s Darfur region are on the attack in neighboring North Kordofan state, official media quoted the military as saying on Friday, after anti-government forces announced they had begun moving towards the capital. “A group of rebels belonging to Khalil Ibrahim were yesterday targeting civilians ... in North Kordofan near the border with North Darfur,” Sudan’s army spokesman Sawarmi Khaled Saad said, according to the Sudan News Agency (SUNA). Ibrahim heads the Justice and Equality Movement, which said through its London-based spokesman on Thursday that its forces were advancing from Darfur eastward towards the capital Khartoum. JEM spokesman Gibril Adam Bilal said the group had reached En Nahud, about 120 kilometers (75 miles) east of Darfur in North Kordofan, on a mission to change the regime led by President Omar al-Bashir. Army spokesman Saad claimed JEM “attacked civilians” and targeted local leaders while looting their property. He gave no casualty figures. “I confirm that there are no SAF (Sudan Armed Forces) or police troops in these areas,” he said. In 2008, more than 222 people were killed when JEM guerrillas drove about 1,000 kilometers across the desert to Omdurman, just over the River Nile from the presidential palace on the Khartoum side. Government troops repulsed them after heavy clashes and later sentenced dozens of rebels to death for their role in the assault. In July, the government signed the Doha Document for Peace in Darfur with the Liberation and Justice Movement, an alliance of rebel splinter factions. Darfur’s main armed groups -- JEM and factions of the Sudan Liberation Army headed by Minni Minnawi and Abdul Wahid Nur -- did not sign the deal. Instead, last month they, along with the SPLM-North rebel group, ratified documents forming the new Sudanese Revolutionary Front dedicated to “popular uprising and armed rebellion” against the National Congress Party regime in Khartoum. According to the United Nations at least 300,000 people have been killed in Darfur since 2003 when fighting broke out between non-Arab rebels and the Arab-dominated Khartoum regime. The government puts the death toll at 10,000. U.N. officials say 1.9 million people are internally displaced and still living in camps in Darfur, with about 80,000 newly displaced by fighting this year. Six people including President Bashir are being sought or are before the Hague-based International Criminal Court for crimes allegedly committed in the Darfur region.