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In the shade of a thorn tree on a plain of cracked earth and yellow grass, Brigadier General Namiri Murrad lays out how the rebels of South Sudan plan to unite and overthrow President Omar Hassan al-Bashir and his Islamist regime in Khartoum. Right now, our work is to clean our house, he tells TIME in the embattled region of South Kordofan on April 6, flanked by four captured tanks and pickups that are mounted with heavy machine guns and missile launchers. The Darfuris are going to clean their house, and the rebels of Blue Nile will clean their house. Then we will move together on Khartoum, and we will finish them. I cannot say when. But I can tell you its easier this time Khartoum is running. They realize they are fighting for the wrong reason. They do not have heart. We are fighting with our hearts. It will be easy to finish them.
There are reasons to share Namiris optimism. Slipping into territory held by Nuba insurgents in South Kordofan, a region of Sudan that borders the newly independent nation of South Sudan, it becomes apparent that a major rebel advance is under way. In the past two months, Nuba fighters from the Sudan Peoples Liberation ArmyNorth (SPLAN) have notched a string of strategic victories, capturing the border town of Jau, the former northern administrative center of Trogi, and pushing back government troops in pitched battles involving thousands of fighters at Korongo, Tess and El Dar. Rebel commanders talk of killing hundreds, even thousands, of Sudanese troops, leaving the plains strewn with bodies a boast given credence by the number of graves of government soldiers that now mark the sites of recent battles.
Crucially, the fleeing northern soldiers have left behind an armory of weapons: several tons of shells, mortars and mines; thousands of AK-47s and millions of rounds; artillery and anti-aircraft guns; and 127 pickup trucks in Jau alone, plus four tanks. Major General Izzat Kuku, Namiris boss and the acting commander of all Nuba forces, estimates that his soldiers control 80% of the Nuba Mountains, the tribes ancestral homeland. In effect, just the two largest cities remain in government hands Talodi and Kalugli and an attack on Talodi appears imminent. Namiri says that up to 1,800 troops from Khartoums Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) are surrounded by 3,000 of his fighters, plus two more separate forces of between 2,000 and 3,000 SPLA troops. This is the time of our work, says Namiri. This is fighting, and it can always go either way, but I dont think it will take one week to finish it.
The implications of the Nuba rebel push are big. Last July, South Sudan split from the regime in Khartoum after more than half a century of war, in which more than 2 million people died. But the new border between North and South left three rebel provinces Darfur, Blue Nile and South Kordofan, in which the Nuba Mountains are located in the North. As South Sudans independence approached, the northern regime, apparently fearing further loss of power in a concurrent election, launched an offensive on rebels in the Nuba Mountains, who were then observing a cease-fire and even cooperating with the government in joint military units. Khartoums security forces first tried to disarm Nuban fighters, then went house to house allegedly arresting and killing Nuban political leaders and activists before ordering an all-out assault on the rebel territory.
but this is reality for this place.
War, war and more war is the nature of this beast. KILL, Rape and destroy! Sad
I have to agree with High Gravity. Personally I hope the Khartoum regime falls apart and that Darfur can gain its independence too. I know too little about the other rebel groups in Sudan.
NUBA MOUNTAINS, Sudan The war against Khartoum is political and ideological, but increasingly it looks as if it must be won or lost on the battlefield.
On a stretch of wooded savannah encircled by a natural amphitheater of hills, new recruits to the rebel army clutch sticks instead of guns as they practice drills. Among the spirited newcomers is 23-year-old Osman Hussein. I am fighting for the rights of the Nuba people, he says. I am not afraid. Even if I die it will be fighting for my people and my land.
Brigadier-General Mahana Bashir, the officer in charge of the SPLA-North camp, said 4,000 troops are currently in training, all volunteers. We are fighting a just war defending our people, defending our land. This is why South Sudan has gone: They were forced to split from Sudan, he says.
In late April, the fighting focused on the town of Talodi, South Kordofans colonial capital.
The commander of the attack on Talodi is Brigadier-General Kuku Jazz, a man famous in the Nuba Mountains for standing up to Khartoum by resisting an attempted disarmament of SPLA-North soldiers in the town of Kadugli last June, an event that helped trigger the resumption of war.
From his headquarters little more than a radio set, some soldiers and a cache of looted weapons hidden among the hills the general can stand on a rock and see the ridge across the plain separating his position from Talodi.
Overhead an Antonov bomber shimmers in the sky on its way to the town, its pulsing engines echoing across the land.
In recent days SPLA-North forces claimed to have taken a succession of villages and hilltops overlooking the town, seizing mortars, ammunition, high caliber machine guns, anti-tank guns and vehicles abandoned by northern forces.
Jazz proudly displays this booty. We will push them back with their own ammunition and their own guns, he says, predicting the town would fall within days.
