Iran’s Revolutionary Guards arrive to fight alongside Sudan army in border state, SPLM says

July 28, 2011 (KHARTOUM) – Members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRG) and Somali militants have arrived in eastern Sudan in order to participate besides the government’s army in the ongoing armed conflict in South Kordofan State, alleged the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM).

The SPLM in South Kordofan, which has been fighting the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) in the oil-producing state since 5 June, said in a press release on Wednesday that its sources had observed the arrival of 200 IRG members accompanied by 10 advanced tanks at Kassala airport in eastern Sudan.

At the same airport, the SPLM further alleged, some Somali Islamist militants arrived two weeks ago and were later spotted heading to South Kordofan.

Sudan and Iran have close military cooperation agreements in different fields. Iranian experts have also participated in the training of army members in the past during the war against the SPLA in South Sudan.

However independent sources contacted by Sudan Tribune failed to confirm the SPLM’s allegations on the participation of Iranian troops in the armed conflict in South Kordofan.

The SPLM, which claimed its forces had inflicted great losses on SAF and that some army members had defected to its forces, accused the government of the ruling National Congress Party of using these militias in its “ethnic cleansing” in South Kordofan.

The SPLM further echoed calls on the UN Security Council to establish a committee to investigate reports of atrocities allegedly committed by SAF and its allied militias.

SAF, which is encountering difficulties in quelling what Khartoum terms as “an all-out rebellion” in South Kordofan, has recently come under attack over allegations of committing wide-ranging abuses during the conflict.

A report prepared by the UN Mission in Sudan on the situation in South Kordofan charged SAF with committing “especially egregious” acts that may amount to “war crimes and crimes against humanity.”

The Northern Sector of the SPLM split away from the SPLM in South Sudan, which is the ruling party of the newly independent state. After Southern secession areas like the Nuba Mountains in South Kordofan and in Blue Nile remain in North Sudan despite fighting with the SPLM for much of Sudan’s second North-South civil war (1983-2005).

A peace deal in 2005 allowed South Sudan to secede through a referendum earlier this year. South Sudan became an independent republic on July 9. Speaking at the ceremony South Sudan president and SPLM chairman, Salva Kiir Mayardit, said he had not forgotten the people of South Kordofan, Blue Nile, Darfur and the contested region of Abyei.

(ST)