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Report: Sudan used Al Qaida fighters in Darfour

Monday, August 6, 2007 | Posted by WorldTribune.com

CAIRO — Sudan employed Al Qaida operatives to fight African Union troops in Darfour.
An official Sudanese document disclosed that Khartoum ordered authorities to allow Al Qaida fighters to enter the country and deploy in the war-torn Darfour province. The 2004 document, published by the Sudan Tribune, said Al Qaida was permitted to resume its activities in Sudan.

The directive was signed by Sudanese presidential adviser Majzoub Al Khalifa. Al Khalifa, said to have been acting on behalf of the ruling National Congress Party, was killed in a car accident in June 2007.

 

Al Khalifa and military commanders ordered Sudanese government agencies to enable "foreign jihadis who came to Sudan with Osama Bin Laden in 1994 to resume their political activities in Sudan given the circumstances surrounding foreign intervention in Darfour to support armed forces and the people of Sudan to fight Zionist enemies," the document, dated April 27, 2004, said. The document was found by the Kosh Liberation Movement.

Western intelligence sources said Al Qaida has been employed to fight rebel groups in Darfour. They said Syria also tested chemical weapons in attacks on rebel-held civilian villages in the Sudanese province.

But the document, a copy of which was sent to both Al Qaida as well as President Omar Bashir, was the first time that Sudan outlined its support for Al Qaida. The 2004 directive stipulated the return of all property confiscated from Al Qaida in 1996 as well as the restoration of the movement's bank accounts.

Al Qaida was believed to have remained in Darfour. In 2006, Al Qaida's No. 2 Ayman Zawahiri called for a holy war against a proposed United Nations force in Darfour.