Arab militiamen who have brought terror to western Sudan are being trained at secret camps to launch a campaign of guerrilla warfare if British troops or other foreign "infidels" are deployed on a peacekeeping operation. The military instruction from Sudanese army officers is part of Khartoum's clandestine efforts to integrate the Janjaweed militia into paramilitary security forces in Darfur. Camel-riding fighters have boasted to local people that they are preparing to fight any "invaders" sent to restore order to a region where an estimated 50,000 black Africans have been killed and more than one million forced from their homes in a year-long frenzy of ethnic cleansing. "They say that they will fight the infidels just as the mujahideen in Iraq are doing. Iraq is their inspiration," said a resident of Kass, a south Darfur market town surrounded by dozens of abandoned and burnt "ghost" villages after a year of Janjaweed attacks.
| Sadr being such an inspiration and all. |
The militia have kept a lower profile in recent days as international attention focused on Darfur, but local African tribesmen insist that many of the Arab herders leading camel trains across the scrub and heading into Nyala and Kass for the weekly livestock markets took part in the rampages. The existence of the Janjaweed training camps in remote corners of Darfur was confirmed to The Telegraph by a prominent politician from his own contacts within the regime. Jaffer Monro is an MP for the ruling National Congress in the one-party state, but he took the risk of breaking ranks with the government to condemn events in his home province. "The Janjaweed are being given proper military training ready for a further escalation in the conflict," said Mr Monro, a member of the parliament's human rights committee, who comes from the Fur tribe. "They are being trained by the government authorities in case foreign troops are sent here."
| They've been trained all along, it seems. |
Two senior figures from the United Nations peacekeeping operation visited the region last week to assess options as the August 30 Security Council deadline for Khartoum to rein in the Janjaweed or face sanctions approaches. Tony Blair has said that Britain would consider sending troops to Darfur as part of an international mission to restore security. Gen Sir Mike Jackson, the chief of general staff, indicated that up to 5,000 British troops could be made available. Khartoum has flatly rejected calls for international intervention, particularly by Western countries, and has repeatedly claimed through the state media that Britain is leading efforts to turn Sudan into "another Iraq". President Omar al-Bashir, who declared "Long live the mujahideen" at a meeting of Janjaweed fighters in Nyala in May, intensified the anti-British rhetoric in a speech on Thursday. "There is an agenda to seek petrol and gold in the region," he said, singling out Britain as the old colonial power for particular opprobrium. |