Sudanese rebels promised women after battle – army commander

Sudanese rebels promised women after battle – army commander

240 words
21 May 2008
06:59 pm GMT
BBC Monitoring Middle East
English
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Sudan State TV today broadcast a recorded programme entitled “Asl al-Hikayah” or “The True Story”, where the commander of the military engineers’ division, Maj-Gen Eng Hasan Salih Umar, described his unit’s operations during the Justice and Equality Movement’s (JEM) recent attack on Omdurman.

Salih said the attack was repelled in a “maximum of two hours, after which their weapons were seized and they fled”.

He praised other army units for their assistance and high level of coordination, which had helped “preserve our troops”, describing the attackers as “children under the effect of stimulants who had been given pictures [of women] and promised that once in Khartoum, they would be married to such girls”.

Asked whether JEM’s objective was to stage a mere sabotage operation or to take control of Khartoum, Salih replied that the movement had “thrown all its capacity and all the support it received from Chad and beyond Chad into the battle, gambling on more foreign assistance”.

He added that in his capacity as an “intelligence officer with 30 year experience, there is no doubt in my mind that such action could only be carried out with foreign support much bigger than Chad”.

The programme also contained footage of troops from the engineers’ division carrying light weapons and celebrating in song and dance.

Source: Sudan TV, Omdurman, in Arabic 1710 gmt 21 May 08

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