Bashir to hold Eid prayer in Sudan’s seized border town

November 5, 2011 (KHARTOUM) – The Sudanese president Omer Al-Bashir is expected to appear Sunday morning in the country’s border town of Al-Kurmuk in celebration of its fall from the hand of rebels to that of his army three days ago.

Sudan’s Armed Forces (SAF) on Thursday announced that they have wrestled control of the strategic town Al-Kurmuk in the country’s southeast state of Blue Nile after heavy battles with rebel fighters of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement North (SPLM-N).

The rebels, who held Al-Kurmuk since the conflict started in early August, acknowledged the capture of their mainstay but said their forces withdrew beforehand and that they were still present in many areas.

The fall of Al-Kurmuk, which lies on the border with Ethiopia, was declared to be imminent by Al-Bashir while addressing a public rally last week.

Nafe Ali Nafe, the presidential assistant and deputy chairman of the ruling National Congress Party (NCP), told the London-based Al-Sharq al-Awsat newspaper that he expects Al-Bashir along with top commanders of the military and security apparatus to perform Eid Al-Adha prayer in Al-Kurmuk on Sunday.

Meanwhile, the commander in chief of SAF’s forces in Blue Nile, Lt-Gen Abdul Mon’im Sa’ad, asserted that all of Sudan’s border areas would soon be free of any rebellion.

Addressing supporters who gathered in front of SAF’s headquarter in Khartoum, Sa’ad added that the good news heard from Blue Nile would “soon be heard from South Kordofan,” where SAF is still battling SPLM-N forces.

He further announced the formation of the new “Blue Nile Battalion,” inviting citizens to join its ranks.

In a related vein, Sudan’s acting cabinet minister Ahmad Karmino revealed that all bars and alcohol-selling shops in Al-Kurmuk would be closed.

The whereabouts of the SPLM-N’s chairman and former governor of Blue Nile, Malik Aggar, remains unknown.

In the meantime, the SPLM-N’s secretary-general Yasir Arman played down the fall of Al-Kurmuk, saying it is the end of a battle not the war.

Arman said that those who pray behind Al-Bashir in Kurmuk would be praying behind a “war criminal” and in front of a heap of corpses.

He vowed that the SPLM-N army was experienced in guerilla war and had a strategy for dealing with such situations.

(ST)