Rebel Leader In Darfur to Vows To Attack
On Khartoum
Darfur
rebel leader Khalil Ibrahim says he would launch more attacks on
Sudan's capital Khartoum until the government fell.
Ibrahim said he was speaking from
Omdurman, the western Khartoum suburb where the attack occurred
-- just across the Nile river from the heart of the capital.
But there was no independent
verification of Ibrahim's whereabouts. Omdurman was quiet
overnight and government officials have said the last rebels
fled the area on Sunday.
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 --
Africa's biggest country.
Sudan said neighbouring Chad was
backing the rebel attack, in which about 65 people were believed
to have been killed.
Security forces cordoned off an
area of Khartoum central near the stadium on Monday chasing a
small group of suspected rebels into a building, witnesses said.
"There gun fire but it's one way. There's no exchange of fire,"
said one witness.
President Omar Hassan al-Bashir's
government also arrested Islamist opposition leader Hassan al-Turabi
and at least four other top members of his party on Monday,
aides said.
JEM has an Islamist agenda and
some of its leaders were allies of Turabi in the past, but he
denies backing the rebels.
Turabi's son said security forces
arrested his father at his home about an hour after returning
from a conference of his Popular Congress Party (PCP) in nearby
Sennar state.
REUTERS/MICHAEL
