Rebel leader accuses Iran, Syria, Egypt of supplying Khartoum with planes
By Al-Hayat, London based daily newspaper
ASMARA, Dec 24, 2003 — The Sudan Liberation Movement, which is active in the western part of Sudan, announced that 10 [Sudanese] government soldiers have been killed. It said: “Three states support Khartoum and implicate foreign groups in fighting in western Sudan”.
The Sudan Liberation Movement leader, lawyer Abd-al-Wahid Muhammad Nur, said: “Iran, Syria and Egypt set up airlifts from their capitals to Khartoum and Al-Fashir”. He accused these states of “supplying the Sudanese government with Mig planes, helicopters and pilots”.
Nur affirmed: “Arabs from central Africa, Mauritania and Chad are fighting alongside the government militia”. He added: “Khartoum is internationalizing the crisis in Darfur while it says that it rejects its internalization”.
Elsewhere, fighting broke out between the rebels and government forces near the city of Kikabih [name phonetic] north of Darfur yesterday. The rebels said they laid an ambush to government troops, in which they destroyed 10 vehicles, seized four others and killed 10 soldiers.
They accused armed militias of continuing to commit “atrocities” in Kikabih. They said: “The militia members raided two days ago the Al-Amiriyah neighbourhood where they killed a number of merchants before withdrawing and setting up a camp outside the city near one of the government’s military garrisons”.
In a press statement, the rebels appealed to the international community “to carry out its duty towards the humanitarian crisis in Darfur”.
They added: “The relief organizations left western Darfur for fear of lawlessness and lack of protection for them”.
A spokesman for the movement, Hasan Ibrahim Mandila, told Al- Hayat: “It is Khartoum, which pushed these organizations to leave for fear that these organizations might monitor human rights violations and ethnic cleansing that are practised by the militias”. He remarked: “The departure of these organizations is a serious development that will add to the humanitarian crisis”.
BBC Monitoring Middle East