Sudan Islamists link government clampdown to Darfur revolt

KHARTOUM, March 29 (AFP) — Sudan’s Islamist opposition said Monday that a government crackdown on senior party officials followed allegations of a coup attempt from within the army linked to a bloody rebellion in the western region of Darfur.

The deputy leader of the Popular Congress, Abdullah Hassan Ahmed, was summoned by security police on Sunday night and told some civilians also took part in the alleged coup attempt, a party statement said.

The authorities then launched a wave of arrests against party officials and axed or transferred a raft of officers in the army, police and security services who originated from Darfur, it said.

The accusations of Darfuri involvement in a coup attempt were a pretext for “a crushing military campaign against the people of Darfur,” the party said.

Earlier the Popular Congress’s leader, Hassan al-Turabi, told AFP that six party officials, including three politburo members, had been detained.

He linked the crackdown to government charges that his party supported the year-old rebel movement among Darfur’s indigenous non-Arab minorities, an allegation he vigorously denied.

The questioning of his deputy on Sunday evening had centred on the uprising, Turabi said.

A one-time mentor of President Omar al-Beshir, Turabi was freed from three years of house arrest in October last year.