Sudan’s Government Says Powerful Rebel Leader Is Dead

[jimmy olsen]

Looks like the secession of South Sudan hasn't done much to stabilize the situation in that region.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/26/world/africa/sudanese-rebel-chief-reported-killed-by-army.html

Sudan's Government Says Powerful Rebel Leader Is Dead
By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN and ISMA'IL KUSHKUSH
Published: December 25, 2011

NAIROBI, Kenya — Khalil Ibrahim, a powerful Sudanese rebel leader who once mounted a daring and near-successful raid that took his fighters from the sun-blasted deserts of Darfur to the doorstep of the capital, Khartoum, died on Saturday from wounds he received in battle, the Sudanese government said.

Sudanese military officials said they had killed Mr. Ibrahim and several of his comrades during a shootout in the southern reaches of the country. Arab news networks reported that Mr. Ibrahim's family had confirmed his death. A statement posted by the Justice and Equality Movement on its Web site confirmed its leader's death and called him a "martyr." But it said that he was killed when his camp came under "an airstrike from an unknown airplane that aimed its rockets with precision unusual to the regime's jet fighters." The statement blamed a "conspiracy by regional and international players with the genocidal government in Khartoum."

Earlier reports said Mr. Ibrahim had died in fighting on Sunday.

The death of Mr. Ibrahim, a shrewd and wily leader, represents an enormous blow to the Justice and Equality Movement, the resilient group that he founded several years ago and that had recently teamed up with other dissidents in Darfur for a multipronged rebellion against the government in Khartoum.

Sudan is home to countless rebel groups. But Mr. Ibrahim's group, with its thousands of battle-hardened fighters and links to dissatisfied Islamist elements within the government in Khartoum, is widely believed to be the gravest threat. His forces are unified, heavily armed, passionate and loyal — at least, they were under his leadership — and Mr. Ibrahim had repeatedly rebuffed efforts to make peace with the government.

According to a statement from the Sudanese military issued early Sunday, "The armed forces were able to destroy the renegade Khalil Ibrahim, who was killed among his group's leaders after a long chase that ended in surrounding him and his forces."

The statement accused Mr. Ibrahim of attacking unarmed civilians and said that "the armed forces were able to cut the escapees' line of retreat that was heading toward South Sudan." Al-Suwarmi Khalid, the Sudanese Army's spokesman, told journalists on Sunday that the group's current military move was an attempt to "forcefully conscript young men into the movement and then head towards South Sudan to join other rebel groups."

Mr. Ibrahim is believed to have recently reached out to the leaders of newly independent South Sudan for help in his battle against Khartoum, but it was not clear how eager the South Sudanese were to get embroiled in another war after fighting Khartoum for decades. Before he became a rebel leader, Mr. Ibrahim served as a militia commander aligned with the central government, and he was blamed for killing countless southerners during Sudan's civil war, which may have been another reason the South Sudanese were reluctant to back him.

Tayeb Zein al-Abideen, a political scientist at the University of Khartoum, said that although the Justice and Equality Movement might remain a potent force, Mr. Ibrahim's death would benefit the Sudanese government.

"Ibrahim was able to establish the movement's foreign relations with Chad, Libya and Eritrea, and there was no competition with him inside his movement," Mr. Tayeb said. "It will be difficult to replace him."

Few in Khartoum have forgotten that Mr. Ibrahim and several thousand of his rebels streamed across the desert from Darfur in a phalanx of battered pickup trucks in May 2008, making it to Omdurman, a city across the Nile River from the capital. Government forces managed to repel the rebels only after intense firefights, which are unusual in Khartoum.

Most of the bloodshed in Sudan has occurred far from the capital, in the impoverished peripheries, like Darfur, where marginalized, non-Arab groups have risen up against the Sudanese Arab-dominated central government. Many analysts said that Mr. Ibrahim must have been aided by turncoats within Sudan's security services to have been able to get so close to Khartoum in 2008.

Lately, though, Mr. Ibrahim, who was thought to have been around 50, was more exposed than ever. His chief patron and weapons supplier, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya, was overthrown and killed. His old sanctuary, Chad, recently made peace with Sudan — at least on paper — and essentially kicked out Mr. Ibrahim and his followers.

Security experts said that Mr. Ibrahim had been hiding in Darfur and was planning attacks against the Sudanese Army. Last month, his movement and several other rebel groups announced they were forming the Sudan Revolutionary Front, a military alliance to topple the Sudan government.

Jeffrey Gettleman reported from Nairobi, and Isma'il Kushkush from Khartoum, Sudan.

[Razgovory]

Why would anyone think it would?