KHARTOUM, Nov 20: Sudanese troops and regional rebels fought deadly clashes in northern Darfur on Thursday, accusing each other of mounting bloody attacks to torpedo a unilateral government ceasefire. The violence came as the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court sought arrest warrants for three unnamed rebel commanders and eight days after President Omar al-Beshir declared a ceasefire in the war-torn western region.

The army and a witness said fighting erupted when rebels from the nebulous Sudan Liberation Army attacked an army base at El-Hilif in North Darfur state.

Journalist Kurt Pelda, Africa correspondent for Swiss newspaper Neue Zuercher Zeitung who is travelling with Darfur rebels, said the rebels tried but failed to capture a relatively new, well-fortified military camp.

“Soon after, two Antonovs came and also helicopters. What I could see is that the Antonovs dropped the bombs just randomly. Later I heard the sound of the rockets that they used (from helicopters),” he said.

Suleiman Marajan, an SLA commander in the area, said five rebels were killed in fighting with the government forces and charged that government bombing burnt one village “completely.”

“He (Beshir) broke his ceasefire himself,” he said.

Pelda said he saw one dead rebel and several wounded after the rebel attack, which he said came two days after an Antonov struck a suspected rebel area that turned out to be nomadic settlement, dropping 20 bombs.

Army spokesman Brigadier General Mohamed Osman al-Aghbash accused rebels of attacking troops four times since the ceasefire, killing at least four soldiers and leaving another eight missing.

He said one soldier was killed in the fighting at El-Hilif on Thursday, but Marajan flatly denied army claims that 30 rebels died.

According to the army, SLA-Unity “attacked” a humanitarian convoy in south Darfur on Nov 13. Two days later, they lured army brass to an undisclosed location on the pretence of wanting talks, then killed an officer in an ambush.

On Nov 16, rebels attacked police in south Darfur, killing an officer and a policeman, and leaving eight policemen missing, Aghbash said.

He said the army would continue to hunt down criminals, thieves and kidnappers and accused rebels of staging the attacks to provoke the army into a reaction.

On Sunday, the army and a senior policy official in the main ruling National Congress Party in Khartoum drew a sharp distinction between a truce in attacks on rebels and an ongoing campaign to flush out “bandits”.

The government insists that acts of self-defence do not compromise the eight-day ceasefire.

Rebel commanders have accused the government of bombing areas of Darfur repeatedly since Beshir announced on Nov 12 a ceasefire that they have boycotted as a propaganda stunt.

Although two Darfur rebel groups initially rose up against the government in February 2003, the conflict has mushroomed into a hugely complex web of violence fought between myriad groups and marred increasingly by banditry.

Sudan wants the African Union and United Nations to establish an effective mechanism to observe the ceasefire, and put pressure on the rebels to accept.

Although the joint African Union-United Nations mission (UNAMID) is supposed to be the largest UN peacekeeping force in the world with a final strength of 26,000, deployment is expected to reach only around 12,600 by the year-end.

Khartoum has sought to stall legal proceedings since the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in July demanded an arrest warrant for Beshir on 10 counts of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur.

—AFP