Ahmad Salaheddin is an Arab who has crossed the ethnic divide in Darfur's bloody war to fight alongside ethnic African rebels. His fellow rebels jokingly call him a "janjaweed" - one of the Arab militiamen who are their fiercest enemy. His presence, along with several other Arabs in a unit of the main rebel group in Darfur, the Sudan Liberation Army, is a sign of the complexity of the ethnic bloodshed in the western Sudanese region.The fight in Darfur is usually defined as between Arabs and ethnic Africans: the ethnic Africans launched a rebellion in 2003 and the Arab-led Sudanese government is accused of arming Arab tribesmen in Darfur to help put it down. The Arab janjaweed militias have since carried out a campaign of violence against ethnic African civilians, killing and raping and driving hundreds of thousands from their homes, the United Nations says.
In general, the definition of Arabs vs. ethnic Africans holds true. It is not known how many Arabs have joined the ethnic African rebels, but their numbers are likely minimal. However, the rebels insist instances like Salaheddin are on the rise. There are also several major Arab tribes that from the start have refused Khartoum's enticements to join the janjaweed. So the government has armed smaller, more impoverished clans for the militias - disrupting the traditional power structures among the Arab tribes.