Darfur defiance

Rebels from the Sudanese region of Darfur vowed to fight on after news that their leader Khalil Ibrahim had been killed by government forces.

"The blood of the martyr will not go in vain, and those who assassinated him will pay the price many times over," Ibrahim's Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) said in a statement.

The death represents a blow to the opposition movement, which has have been fighting the country's central government since 2003.

A Sudanese armed forces spokesman said Ibrahim had been trying to enter South Sudan, which seceded from the country in July, after a 2005 peace deal that ended a separate civil war.

"The armed forces announce the death of Khalil Ibrahim in the area of Wad Banda in North Kordofan state at dawn today," the state news agency SUNA said on Sunday in a statement via SMS.

Conflicting stories

Information Minister Abdullah Ali Massar said Ibrahim had died in a battle, and that fighting was still continuing.

However, the JEM claimed that Ibrahim had been killed in an air attack on Friday, directed by a spy within his own entourage.

The rebels, mainly non-Arabs who live in the western region, claim the central government had left them out of political and economic power structures, instead favoring local Arab tribes. Some rebel groups had agreed a peace with the government, but the JEM has continued to fight.

The United Nations says as many as 300,000 have died in the years of conflict in Darfur, where Arab militia have been mobilized by the government against insurgents.

The International Criminal Court has charged Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir with masterminding genocide in the region.

Author: Richard Connor (AP, AFP, dpa, Reuters)
Editor: Andreas Illmer