Sudan prepares counter-offensive – Eastern rebels

ASMARA, June 23 (AFP) — A rebel group that attacked government positions in eastern Sudan at the weekend said Thursday that Khartoum was massing troops for a counter-offensive in Red Sea state.

Rebels from Sudan’s Eastern Front parade north of Kassala town, near the Eritrean border, in March 2005. (AFP).

The Eastern Front, which has been fighting Sudanese troops south of Port Sudan for five days, said it was preparing to defend ground it had gained around the town of Tokar, halfway between Port Sudan and the Eritrean border.

“The enemy is gathering troops, tanks, heavy artillery, it is coming from Kassala and moving towards Hamish Koreb,” said Salah Barqueen a senior Eastern Front official.

“They are preparing an attack,” he told AFP from the front’s offices in the Eritrean capital of Asmara. “We know their size because we have very good information on the ground.”

“We are ready to defend ourselves, we have enough troops,” Barqueen said. “But it’s not a matter of quantity but quality, of traps, of plans.”

The Eastern Front — created only in February by eastern Sudan’s two main dissident factions, the Beja Congress and Free Lions — launched its first major military operation against the government on Sunday near Tokar.

Despite claiming to have captured as many as 20 soldiers, a commander and a significant amount of military hardware, Barqueen said the town, about 120 kilometers (75 miles) south of Port Sudan, was still in government hands.

“We still don’t have Tokar,” he said, stressing, however, that the front’s fighters fully intended to take the town before government reinforcements arrived.

“It is difficult to defend a town so first we are clearing the area, making sure there are no enemy pockets,” Barqueen said. “There is a lot to do.”

The Eastern Front has been joined in its offensive by the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), a rebel group from the troubled western region of Darfur.

Both eastern and western rebels claim their regions are being marginalized by the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum.