Darfur rebels 'partially destroy oilfield'

Darfurian rebels have partially destroyed an oil field in a rare eastward extension of their campaign toward central Sudan, the rebels and government said.

The attack appeared to be another sign that Darfur’s violence is spreading across the region. The National Redemption Front rebel group said its fighters seized the Abu Jabra oil field on the edge of South Darfur and the state of South Kordofan on Sunday.

“The government garrison guarding the oil field was totally destroyed,” the NRF said in a statement. “Numerous soldiers, including high-ranking officers and generals, have surrendered,” the rebels said, claiming to have shot down an army helicopter and to have captured a “substantial amount” of weapons and military vehicles.

But the Sudanese military said its forces repelled the attack and were in full control of the field today. The army “inflicted heavy causalities on the rebels, who withdrew from the area,” a military spokesman said, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with official policy.

“To put it simply, they did not achieve what they were looking for,” the military spokesman said, accusing the insurgents of trying to extend Darfur’s violence to other parts of Sudan.

The NRF is a loose coalition of rebels who oppose a peace agreement signed by one insurgent group and the government in May to end three years of violence in Darfur that has killed 200,000 people and displaced 2.5 million.

The rebel raid came amid heightened violence in Darfur, where pro-government janjaweed militia have been accused by the United Nations of forcing 60,000 people to flee their homes this month.

Minni Minnawi, the one rebel chief who signed the May peace agreement with the government, accused Khartoum of rearming the janjaweed in violation of the peace deal and warned this could further threaten the already faltering cease-fire.

“This doesn’t mean we are threatening to withdraw from the peace agreement, but that we call on the government to follow it,” Minnawi’s chief of staff, Mohammed el-Beshir, said during a telephone interview.

In South Darfur, officials accused Minnawi’s rebel faction of having ceded terrain to the NRF to facilitate attacks.

But the NRF’s head of strategic planning, Abdullahi el-Tom, denied this, telling The Associated Press that his group had occupied Minnawi’s territory in South Darfur by force.

Observers fear Darfur’s violence is spilling over and threatening to destabilise the entire region. Neighbouring Chad accuses Sudan of backing a rebel raid that briefly took a large Chadian town and threatened the capital in recent days.

To the south of Darfur, the Central African Republic also alleges that Sudan is backing a local rebellion. Khartoum denies both charges. But aid workers in the west Darfur town of El Geneina said they could observe Chadian rebel groups operating freely in the area. The aid workers spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

Earlier this month, aid agencies also reported Darfur-type ethnic violence spilling over into the state of Kordofan.

The NRF stronghold has traditionally been in Northern Darfur, and its strike against an oilfield on the border South Darfur and Southern Kordofan shows a considerable leap in range.

A Sudanese official in the oil industry said the state-owned Abu Jabra field produces up to 10,000 barrels per day – a relatively small output.

“The capacities seem to have been significantly damaged, but it won’t affect Sudan’s production overall,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

Sudanese officials say the country produces about 500,000 barrels per day and that oil revenue should be at least 4 billion dollars this year, more than half of the government’s income.

Most of Sudan’s oil reserves are in the south of the country, which is now semi autonomous under a separate peace agreement that southern rebels signed with the government in January 2005.

In July, NRF rebels ventured east of Darfur and attacked the Northern Kordofan town of Hamarat Sheikh, killing over a dozen people.