Sudan Briefly Arrests Islamist Leader

NAIROBI,Kenya-Hassan Turabi, a flamboyant Islamist leader who was once friends with Osama bin Laden, was arrested Monday morning on suspicion of fomenting a rebellion.Sudanese officials released Mr. Turabi from jail by the end of the day, but said he may have helped a rebel force from Darfur stage a bold, unprecedented attack on Khartoum, the capital, on Saturday. Mr. Turabi’s Islamic political party is widely known to have links with the Darfurian rebel group, the Justice and Equality Movement, which also has an Islamist agenda. Hundreds of the group’s fighters crossed the desert from Darfur in a convoy of pick-up trucks and penetrated the suburbs of Khartoum, provoking intense clashes that killed upwards of 100 people.The government security services seem to have won, though on Monday a band of rebels slipped into central Khartoum. Residents said one fighter holed up in a tall building and fired down at police officers until he ran out of ammunition and was killed.Several Western diplomats said they had been ordered by their embassies to keep a low profile and stay indoors.“At first, people were thinking this was simmering down,” said one diplomat, who said he could not be identified for safety reasons, “Now they’re feeling anxious.”A high-ranking Sudanese police official said that Mr. Turabi’s contacts, which are thought to run deep into the Sudanese army, may have helped the rebels get as far as they got.“They had inside information,” the police official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to journalists. “The rebels had some people inside in Khartoum. They talked to them. They got information about where our forces were positioned and they choose another way.”Rabie A. Atti , a government spokesman, said Mr. Turabi had been questioned intensely about the attack.“We have decided to set him free, but he still remains under investigation,” Dr. Rabie said on Monday night.
Handcuffs are nothing new for Mr. Turabi. He has been detained time and again for much of his long career. He has been an outspoken Islamist scholar for decades and is believed to have played an important role in the rise of Sudan’s president, Omar al- Bashir. Mr. Turabi was one of the Sudanese leaders who invited Mr. Bin Laden to Khartoum in the mid-1990s, when Khartoum was a major base of operations for the Al Qaeda terrorist network.Mr. Turabi, who is around 75, studied in London and Paris, but fell out with Mr. Bashir a few years ago and was sent to prison. His wife and elder son were also detained. In an interview last year Mr. Turabi said, “Jail? We’re all used to it. It’s nothing to worry about.”Mr. Turabi’s arrest on Monday seemed to be part of a widening crackdown after the attack. Government forces have fanned out across Khartoum, rounding up Darfurians and suspected rebel sympathizers. A curfew that had been lifted on Sunday was re-imposed on Monday in some areas around Khartoum, which is usually one of the safest big cities in Africa.The police official said that more than 200 rebel fighters have been captured and they admitted being trained and armed in Chad. An American official in the region said that 3,000 armed men had participated in the attack, which may also implicate Chad because the Justice and Equality Movement is not thought to even have that many fighters.The Sudanese government broke off diplomatic relations with Chad on Sunday, accusing its equally troubled neighbor of sponsoring the attack, which may have been a form of retribution. Earlier this year, a rebel force in Chad nearly overran the presidential palace and many analysts said Sudanese forces participated. The two countries, who share a long desert border, have been in a near state of war for several years.Many people have questioned why the Darfurian rebels would attempt a frontal assault on well-fortified Khartoum, which up until Saturday had been mostly spared Darfur’s bloodshed.Julie Flint, co-author of “Darfur: A Short History of a Long War,” said the rebels may have been hoping to catalyze a broader rebellion.
“Who knows what would have happened if they had managed to keep the fighting going for a while,” she said. “Maybe there would have been a popular uprising. Maybe other elements would have joined in.”Even though the rebels were more or less repulsed, Ms. Flint thinks the attack humiliated the security services, “the very heart of the regime,” and that the Sudanese government will strike back even harder.“Power is now with the hardliners,” she said. “Voices of moderation in the government will be drowned out by those who have always wanted a military solution to the war.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/13/world/africa/13sudan.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin

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