Sudan finds arms cache, blames Islamist opposition

KHARTOUM, Sept 11 (Reuters) – Sudanese security forces discovered an arms cache they say was hidden by a member of an Islamist opposition party for use in an attempt to sabotage the government, the interior ministry said on Saturday.

The arms, discovered in al-Khilailah, north of Khartoum in a dawn raid on Friday, included 100 Kalashnikovs, 10 mortars, more than 100 shells and other weapons, said an interior ministry statement sent to Reuters.

Sudan’s semi-official press carried photos of the weapons.

The security services said last week it had arrested 33 members of Hassan al-Turabi’s Popular Congress (PC) party for an attempted sabotage plot with help from Sudan’s eastern neighbour Eritrea.

Turabi is under house arrest accused of inciting tribal tensions.

He and his party are blamed for fanning the flames of a rebellion in Sudan’s remote western Darfur region, where African groups took up arms against Khartoum in February last year.

The United Nations estimates the fighting has caused one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises with more than one million displaced and 200,000 refugees encamped in neighbouring Chad.

The United States said on Thursday the Darfur conflict amounted to genocide and blamed the government and Arab militias, known as Janjaweed, for the violence.

The security services continued to arrest high-level PC party officials, family members said, with the chairman of the foreign relations office, Mohamed al-Amin Khalifa, detained on Friday evening.

“The government says it wants to arrest all the members of the Popular Congress. They arrested my father yesterday,” said Hajjar Khalifa. She said he had been taken to Khobar prison in Khartoum.

PC officials were not immediately available to comment on the weapons discovery.

One political analyst in Khartoum said the crackdown on the only active opposition party in Khartoum was not helpful while the government was negotiating with exiled opposition parties in the Egyptian capital Cairo.

“It does not set a good example when you are trying for national reconciliation outside Sudan and inside Sudan you are arresting the opposition,” said the analyst who declined to be named.