Nafie says Sudan’s army close to seizing Kauda, SPLM-N says ready to repulse

May 7, 2012 (KHARTOUM) – The Sudanese presidential assistant, Nafie Ali Nafie, said on Monday that the country’s army is close to taking control of Kauda, the stronghold of the armed opposition Sudan People’s Liberation Movement North (SPLM-N) in South Kordofan State, while the latter said it is aware of such plans and ready to thwart them.

Speaking to reporters following a meeting of the National Congress Party’s (NCP) leadership office chaired by President Omer Al-Bashir, Nafie said that the “liberation” of Kauda locality will happen very soon as planned by the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the minister of defense.

Al-Bashir visited South Kordofan’s strategic town of Talodi on Friday in the wake of fresh attempts by the rebels to capture it. The Sudanese president said from there that he intends to perform next week’s Friday prayer in Kauda.

In a press release on Sunday, the SPLM-N confirmed that what it called as NCP militias and allied paramilitary forces are planning to launch a major attempt to capture Kauda.

The SPLM-N said it obtained detailed information about the planned offensive, saying it will involve air support by Iranian and jet fighters and those of another foreign country it did not identify but hinted that its peacekeepers had served in South Kordofan under the United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS).

UNMIS’s peacekeeping force in South Kordofan was predominantly Egyptian. The rebels said the attack is planned on five fronts and that their forces were fully ready to repulse the assailants and chase them back up to Khartoum.

Kauda is located 92 km to the east of South Kordofan’s capital Kadugli. The rebels have in the recent past focused their efforts to capture Talodi which is the second largest town in the state.

South Kordofan’s conflict erupted in June last year when Sudan attempted to forcibly disarm SPLM-N fighters it accuses of being backed by their brother-in-arms in the South Sudanese army.

(ST)