Recent Appearances...

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Recent Appearances...

Africa Horn

Armed groups converge in Cairo to discuss ceasing hostilities in Darfur

2024-01-24

[SUDANTRIBUNE] Armed movements that signed the Juba Peace Agreement are gathering in Cairo for a workshop to discuss the possibility of reaching a ceasefire in Darfur and reducing tensions in the region.

The workshop, organized by the French organization Premediation in collaboration with the French and Egyptian Ministries of Foreign Affairs, was initially scheduled to include representatives from the Sudan
Sudan

...a Moslem country located in the Horn of Africa. It is noted for its affinity for rule by ex- or current generals, its holy men, and for the oppression of the native Afro population by its Arab conquerors. South Sudan, populated mostly by the natives, split off from Sudan proper, which left North and South Darfur to be oppressed by the guys with turbans...
ese army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

Sources close to the workshop revealed that the Sudanese army had reservations about attending, while the RSF initially expressed their approval. However,
a hangover is the wrath of grapes...
as of late Monday evening, there was no confirmation of their representatives’ arrival in Cairo.

The RSF, a paramilitary group that controls four out of five states in Darfur, has been engaged in fierce festivities with the Sudanese army since October 2023.

The workshop will focus on two key topics: 1) achieving a ceasefire in Darfur and 2) establishing a joint committee between the military authorities in the region to reduce tensions and promote coordination.

Among the armed movements attending the workshop are the Secretary of Presidential Affairs of the Gathering of Sudan Liberation Forces, Brigadier General Mubarak Bakhit, and the Vice President of the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) led by Suleiman Sandal, Gibril Adam Bilal. Additionally, Seif al-Din Issa, Advisor to the President of the Sudan Liberation Movement Transitional Council (SLM-TC, is also participating.

However,
a hangover is the wrath of grapes...
the participation of the Sudan Liberation Movement led by Minni Arko Minawi remains uncertain. While the Justice and Equality Movement led by Gibril Ibrahim decided to boycott the meeting.

Hassan Ibrahim Fadl, JEM Spokesman acknowledged their invitation to the workshop but expressed their regret for not attending. In a statement on Monday night, he explained that the JEM decided to withdraw after learning that the RSF was invited to participate in the meeting.

The groups said that the RSF should implement the Jeddah Declaration to Cessation of Hostilities, signed on May 11, 2023, which stipulates the withdrawal of the paramilitary group from civilian areas.

Link

Africa Horn

Sudan rebels claim strike on Kordofan town

2013-11-18

[Pak Daily Times] Sudanese rebels on Sunday struck a town near the border of troubled South Kordofan state, where witnesses confirmed fighting was under way.

"We were awakened at 6:00 am by continuous loud kabooms and the sound of shooting," said a resident of Abu Zabad, in North Kordofan state.

He asked not to be named for security reasons.

"Armed men in Land Cruisers drove into the town and targeted a SAF compound and the cop shoppe," he said, referring to the Sudan Armed Forces.

The town, in an agricultural region, is home to a small military facility.

Gunfire could still be heard at about midday when another resident spoke by telephone from under his bed.

He said he had seen the rebels arrive earlier at the local market, firing their weapons in the air. They appeared exhausted, thirsty and in need of fuel, he said.

The Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) said it "took control" of the small community which is a few kilometres (miles) from South Kordofan state, where rebels have been fighting for two years. "We control all government buildings there," JEM front man Gibril Adam Bilal told AFP.

Link

Africa Horn

'Many Dead Bodies' as Sudan Rebels Renew Attacks

2013-11-13

[An Nahar] Sudanese rebels on Tuesday claimed their first major attack of the new fighting season, even as the country's defense minister vowed to crush them in coming months.

There were "many, many casualties, many dead bodies" in the afternoon ambush which destroyed three tanks near Dilling town in South Kordofan state, said Arnu Ngutulu Lodi, front man for the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army-North (SPLA-N).

"As I'm speaking to you, our forces are controlling the road."

Fighting typically intensifies in the region when roads again become passable after the rainy season.

Sudan's army front man could not be reached for comment.

Lodi said the government convoy had traveled from Khartoum and through El Obeid, the North Kordofan capital, before it was hit on the road to the South Kordofan capital Kadugli.

"We were monitoring them," he said, adding that a rescue convoy was also attacked.

SPLA-N fighters conducted the operation alongside the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) from Darfur, Lodi said.

The two groups belong to the Sudan Revolutionary Front which seeks to topple the Khartoum regime and install a government more representative of the country's diversity.

JEM said several dozen government troops were killed and 10 taken prisoner.

"In another battle, we captured a government compound," 25 kilometers (15 miles) east of Dilling, JEM front man Gibril Adam Bilal said.

"We lost three of our colleagues as deaders."

Analysts say casualty figures from either side in the war should be treated with caution.

JEM has been supporting the SPLA-N in South Kordofan since shortly after rebellion began there two years ago, analysts say.

The claimed attacks came as Defense Minister Abdelrahim Mohammed Hussein told parliament that his forces were commencing an operation to crush the snuffies over the next few months.

"This summer will see an end to the rebellion, and after that stability will return to South Kordofan and Darfur," he said.

Sudan had long accused South Sudan of backing rebels in the north, but relations between the two countries have improved since a September summit between President Omar al-Bashir

Head of the National Congress Party. He came to power in 1989 when he, as a brigadier in the Sudanese army, led a group of officers in a bloodless military coup that ousted the government of Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi and eventually appointed himself president-for-life. He has fallen out with his Islamic mentor, Hasan al-Turabi, tried to impose shariah on the Christian and animist south, resulting in its secessesion, and attempted to Arabize Darfur by unleashing the barbaric Janjaweed on it. Sudan's potential prosperity has been pissed away in warfare that has left as many as 400,000 people dead and 2.5 million displaced. Omar has been indicted for genocide by the International Criminal Court but nothing is expected to come of it.
and his southern counterpart Salva Kiir.

They agreed, among other measures, to set up a demilitarized buffer zone designed to prevent cross-border rebel support.

Hussein told politicians that the rebels have 8,000 fighters in South Kordofan, alongside 1,000 from the Revolutionary Front.

Analyst reports issued early this year said there were 30,000 or more SPLA-N fighters in South Kordofan, while government forces numbered 40,000-70,000.

Nuba Reports, a website of "citizen news hounds" in South Kordofan, reported on November 4 that it had observed both an increase in government air strikes and rebel troop movements during October, at the end of the rainy season.

Military helicopter traffic into Khartoum has also been stepped up in recent days, Agence La Belle France Presse correspondents reported.

The government and rebels are both refusing to allow U.N. workers to vaccinate children against polio
...Poliomyelitis is a disease caused by infection with the poliovirus. Between 1840 and the 1950s, polio was a worldwide epidemic. Since the development of polio vaccines the disease has been largely wiped out in the civilized world. However, since the vaccine is known to make Moslem pee-pees shrink and renders females sterile, bookish, and unsubmissive it is not widely used by the turban and automatic weapons set...
in rebel zones of South Kordofan and Blue Nile, where SPLA-N is also fighting, U.N. humanitarian operations director John Ging said Monday.

A broader internationally-backed plan to get food and other aid into rebel-held areas collapsed last year despite months of talks.

As a result, 800,000 people in the war-zone have had no outside assistance for 18 months, Ging said.

In separate comments earlier this year he said people were surviving on "roots and leaves."

Defence Minister Hussein also told parliament that tribal violence has eclipsed rebel activity as the major security threat to Sudan's Darfur region.

Battles between Arab tribal militias have killed hundreds this year.

"The tribal festivities are the biggest challenge and threat to security in Darfur, more than rebel movements," Hussein said.

Non-Arab rebels rose up 10 years ago in Darfur, seeking an end to what they viewed as Arab elites' domination of Sudan's power and wealth.

In response, government-backed Janjaweed faceless myrmidons recruited among the Arab tribes shocked the world with atrocities against non-Arab civilians.

Analysts say the cash-starved government can no longer control its former Arab tribal allies and violent competition for resources has intensified.

Hussein is wanted internationally for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in Darfur.

Link

Africa North

Sudan Rebels Claim Clash in Strategic Region

2013-07-28

[AnNahar] Sudanese rebels clashed with government forces on Saturday for the second time this week in the strategic South-North Kordofan region, the snuffies said.

The Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), a Darfur-based group which is part of a wider rebel alliance seeking to topple the government, said it ambushed a convoy north of Dilling town.

The army front man could not be reached for comment.

There has been an upsurge of rebel activity since April in the South-North Kordofan boundary region, through which passes the main road link to the national capital Khartoum.

Dilling is on the route linking the South Kordofan state capital Kadugli with El Obeid, North Kordofan's capital which is home to an air force base and an oil refinery.

Residents of Dilling said they heard gunfire and kabooms coming from north of the town.

"Authorities ordered buses traveling to El Obeid to cancel their trips," one resident said, asking for anonymity because of the situation.

On Wednesday, both the JEM and the army said they had fought at Sidrah, about 130 kilometers (80 miles) northeast of Dilling in North Kordofan.

That attack ended weeks of relative calm in the area.

It came as the African Union
...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful...
and East Africa's regional bloc, the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), launched a panel to probe allegations by Sudan and South Sudan that each is supporting rebels operating on the other's territory.

Because of the allegations, Khartoum has threatened to close an economically vital pipeline carrying South Sudanese oil for export.

JEM front man Gibril Adam Bilal said that after the ambush, surviving government troops fled towards Dilling where fighting continued on the town's outskirts.

He said six government troops were killed, but analysts say casualty figures from either side in the war should be treated with caution.

The rebels also took some prisoners, Bilal said.

The JEM and two factions of the Sudan Liberation Army in Darfur belong to the Sudan Revolutionary Front (SRF), an alliance with the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N), a group which has been fighting for two years in South Kordofan and Blue Nile states.

SPLM-N front man Arnu Ngutulu Lodi said his forces were in the Dilling area but he could not immediately confirm that they joined Saturday's fighting.

The latest incident is a follow-up to the Sidrah battle earlier in the week as rebels seek to sever key logistical routes in the area, a regional analyst said.

Those routes include the road to Kadugli and the stretch from El Obeid to Kosti, a key point on the way to Khartoum.

The SRF rebel alliance staged its first joint operation in April, sweeping through a previously peaceful part of North Kordofan near Sidrah as part of coordinated attacks in the region.

Analysts said those rebel strikes humiliated the authorities, who took a month to retake one of the seized areas, Abu Kershola.

Link

Africa Horn

Darfur rebels denounce Doha donors meet

2013-04-08

[Al Ahram] Rebels who have been fighting for 10 years in Sudan's Darfur region on Sunday denounced an international donor conference which seeks support for "rebuilding" the devastated region.

"I would like to condemn very strongly" the meeting which began the same day in the Gulf state of Qatar, said Abdel Wahid Mohammed al-Nur, who heads a faction of the Sudan Liberation Army.

"To have (a) donors' conference you have to have peace and security on the ground first," said Nur, who launched the rebellion in 2003.

Speaking to AFP, he alleged that donated money "will not go to the people".

Gibril Adam Bilal, front man for the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), asked the international community "not to participate in giving the government of Sudan a chance to conduct crimes" against the people.

The Doha conference, which ends on Monday, was agreed under a July 2011 peace deal which Khartoum signed in the Qatari capital with an alliance of rebel splinter groups.

Major rebel movements including JEM and Nur's faction have refused to sign the peace pact.

Link

Africa Horn

Darfur rebels in South Kordofan 'clash' with army

2012-09-11

[Daily Nation (Kenya)] Rebels from Sudan's Darfur region said they clashed on Sunday with government forces in embattled South Kordofan state, where other Islamic fascisti reported repulsing a government offensive.

The fighting is the latest since Sudan and South Sudan -- which Khartoum accuses of backing the rebels -- last week resumed African Union
...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful...
-led talks in Æthiopia to resolve security and other crucial issues.

Darfur's Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) said 10 government soldiers were killed in the fighting between El Muglad and El Dibb, in northwestern South Kordofan just over the border from Darfur.

"Some on our side were maimed but nobody killed," said JEM front man Gibril Adam Bilal.

Casualty claims are difficult to verify, with access to South Kordofan restricted.

Army front man Sawarmi Khaled Saad denied that a clash had occurred and said the JEM does not have "any presence or activity in South Kordofan state."

The JEM began its Darfur uprising almost a decade ago.

Last year they and other Darfur Islamic fascisti joined a Revolutionary Front to work together to overthrow the Arab-dominated Khartoum regime that they say is unrepresentative of the country's diversity.

Another Revolutionary Front member, the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N), is active in South Kordofan and Blue Nile states.

SPLM-N on Sunday said it had repulsed government soldiers who tried to seize two rebel-held villages near the South Kordofan state capital of Kadugli.

The army tried on Friday to take Dloka village, 13 kilometres (eight miles) south of Kadugli, as well as a second community northeast of the government-controlled capital, SPLM-N front man Arnu Ngutulu Lodi said.

Link

Africa Horn

Darfur rebels say army base seized in South Kordofan

2012-07-24

[Daily Nation (Kenya)] Rebels from Sudan's Darfur region on Monday said they seized a government military compound just across the Darfur state border in South Kordofan.

The Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) said it took control of the base near the Abu Jabar oil field but its front man, Gibril Adam Bilal, had no information on rebel or government casualties.

"Now there is fighting between our troops and SAF in another area" nearby, Bilal told AFP.

The Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) front man could not be reached for comment.

The alleged clash comes after South Sudan said on Saturday it was cancelling planned face-to-face peace talks with Sudan after accusing Khartoum of launching a new air raid on its territory.

Two people were maimed in the strike against Northern Bahr el Ghazal state, which borders southeastern Darfur, South Sudan's military front man said.

One of Sudan's negotiators to the African Union
...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful...
-led talks, Omar Dahab, denied the bombing, saying SAF had responded inside its own territory to an attempted JEM attack.

Last year, the government signed a peace deal in Doha with an alliance of Darfur rebel splinter factions but JEM and other key rebels in Darfur refused to participate.

Link

Africa Horn

Rebels 'Defeat, Capture' Sudan Troops in Darfur

2012-06-10

[An Nahar] Sudanese rebels seized control of an area in war-ravaged eastern Darfur after deadly festivities with government militias, their front man said on Saturday, adding that the army continued to bombard the area.

"Justice and Equality Movement forces seized the Um Ajajah region in eastern Darfur on Friday, destroying a mobile contingent of government militias and capturing 20 small vehicles and large trucks loaded with military equipment," JEM front man Gibril Adam Bilal said.

"There were casualties on the side of the government troops and we also took a number of them as war prisoners," he told AFP in English by phone, without specifying how many troops were killed or captured.

"We expect more fighting today. The Sudanese air force is still bombarding the Um Ajajah area," he added.

But army front man Sawarmi Khaled Saad denied that Sudanese troops were in the area, claiming instead that JEM forces were seizing civilian property in the region.

"The rebels attacked civilians in this area and looted their properties. They also looted the property of a company building roads there," he said.

Link

Africa Horn

Six Darfur rebels sentenced to death

2012-03-22

[Daily Nation (Kenya)] A Sudanese court on Tuesday sentenced six members of a key Darfur rebel group to hang after convicting them of terrorism and criminal charges, a lawyer said.

A seventh defendant, also from the rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), was locked away for 10 years, lawyer Tahani Abdelrahim said. Abdelrahim said the sentences will be appealed.

The government announced two years ago that the seven were captured in West Darfur after a battle.

About 100 relatives of the accused attended the hearing at a downtown Khartoum court but everyone, including journalists, was ordered out for the sentencing by Judge Moutasim Tajalsir.

Abdelrahim said the accused stood and shouted in praise of JEM's late leader Khalil Ibrahim as they heard the verdict.

"Khalil is a martyr. We are following his path," she quoted them as saying.
He died too...
Government forces said they killed Ibrahim in December. His brother took over as leader of the movement.

JEM front man Gibril Adam Bilal condemned the death sentences against its "prisoners of war" and called on the international community to ensure the punishment is not carried out.

One of those condemned to hang is from South Sudan.

More than 100 JEM rebels received the death penalty after the movement staged an unprecedented march to the outskirts of Khartoum's twin city Omdurman in 2008 before being repulsed.

President Omar al-Bashir

Link

Africa Horn

Key Darfur Rebel Group Says New Leader Chosen

2012-01-27

[An Nahar] A key rebel group in Sudan's troubled Darfur region said on Thursday it has chosen a one-time university professor to head the movement after his brother, the former leader, was killed last month.

At a two-day meeting in South Kordofan state, the Justice and Equality Movement selected Gibril Ibrahim to replace his brother Khalil, the group's front man Gibril Adam Bilal told AFP.

"(The) Justice and Equality Movement held its extraordinary general conference in South Kordofan, attended by 109 people who elected Gibril Ibrahim as the leader," Bilal said by satellite telephone.

The JEM meeting affirmed its commitment to work with other rebel groups "to remove the regime", and endorsed all decisions made by its late leader in previous years, he added.

Gibril Ibrahim trained as an economist and worked as a professor at universities in Khartoum and Soddy Arabia. He has recently been based in London where he served as an adviser to JEM and head of its foreign relations.

JEM announced that his brother Khalil Ibrahim, 54, was killed on December 23 in an air strike, although Sudan's military said the longtime rebel chief was maimed during a clash with government forces in North Kordofan, which adjoins North Darfur state, and died later.

JEM and other rebel groups drawn from Darfur's ethnic minorities rose up against the Arab-dominated Khartoum government in 2003 and were confronted by state-backed Janjaweed militia in a conflict that shocked the world and led to allegations of genocide.

Since then, the rebel movements have fallen into banditry and the government is keen to bring JEM into a peace deal to bring a "clean end" to the conflict, said Magdi al-Gizouli, a fellow at the Rift Valley Institute, a non-profit research and advocacy group.

"The politically motivated rebellion of 2003 is essentially dead," he said.

The United Nations
...an idea whose time has gone...
estimates at least 300,000 people have died as a result of the Darfur conflict, with about 300 killed in festivities last year.

The Sudanese government puts the corpse count at 10,000.

Gibril Ibrahim inherits a movement that has been weakened by chronic war and divisions, Gizouli said.

"Unless he has some regional backing, his options are limited" and he may ultimately seek an accommodation with the government, Gizouli said.

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