Sudan in Crisis UNMIS Watches

Escalating violence against civilians in Sudan’s South Kordofan state is a major humanitarian catastrophe in the making, with an estimated 300,000 people besieged, cut off from relief aid, and unable to escape fighting.

The United Nations estimates that up to 40,000 people have fled fighting

• between Sudanese government troops, Sudan Armed Forces (SAF), and members of the former southern rebel group, the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), in Kadugli, the capital of Sudan’s oil-producing border state of South Kordofan.
• Shelling was heard in the town of Kauda this morning and Antonov planes have been seen carrying out aerial bombardment in areas with a significant civilian population,
• in the Heiban and Um Dorain areas among others.
• Furthermore, low-flying MIG fighter planes have been used to terrify the displaced people seeking shelter around the United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) compound just north of Kadugli.

For the last five days, people have locked themselves in their homes without food or water, for fear of being killed. Others have fled to the Nuba mountains, where they are being hunted down like animals by helicopter gunships, says the Sudan Council of Churches, an umbrella organisation representing all Sudanese churches.

Humanitarian efforts in and around Kadugli have been severely hampered by the fighting and the presence of large number of Sudan Armed Forces troops.

Several eye-witness accounts indicate that SAF troops are carrying out

• “house-to-house” searches in the towns,
• pulling out suspected opposition sympathisers and in some cases killing them on the spot.

Meanwhile, the SPLA has been accused of committing atrocities and failing to protect civilians.

A peace network of Christian churches that has worked in Sudan for nearly two decades, the Sudan Ecumenical Forum, says the international community should pressurise both warring parties to fulfil their obligation to protect civilians.

• SEF co-chair Rev. Eberhard Hitzler says that unless an immediate ceasefire is called, emergency workers are allowed to deliver relief, and the United Nations Mission in Sudan protects civilians, killing will continue on an unprecedented scale.
• Both the SPLA and the government forces have a responsibility to protect civilians.

Since 1994, the Sudan Ecumenical Forum has played a major role in raising awareness in the international arena about conflicts in Sudan and contributed to peace-building, with the voice of the Sudanese churches at the centre.

SEF co-chair Eberhard Hitzler says urgent action is needed.

“A humanitarian crisis on an enormous scale is unfolding in South Kordofan state. We appeal to the world leaders and governments to pay attention to this situation and urgently protect people.”

The SEF has already received many reports by independent witnesses claiming violence and atrocities against civilians.

• Two eyewitnesses saw people, perceived to be SPLA sympathisers, dragged out of the UNMIS compound in Kadugli and executed in front of UNMIS personnel, who did not intervene.

Meanwhile, UNMIS in Kauda – which was besieged by shelling earlier today - has apparently lost credibility with locals. This is affecting the quality of UN information, as many people are unwilling to speak to UN staff. The eyewitness claims have been backed up by evidence from individual churches in the region, which have contacted SEF pleading for urgent assistance in bringing the world’s attention to the killings.

In addition to killings, looting, the burning of property and threats that have caused tens of thousands of people to flee their homes, the violence is a serious threat to stability between northern and southern Sudan and could affect the whole region, says Hitzler. “The international community, led by the UN Security Council, with the explicit and unwavering support from particularly China, USA, the African Union, the Arab League and the European Union, must urgently take all measures to stop hostilities, protect civilians and allow humanitarian access to all parts of South Kordofan, as a first step to re-engaging the opposing political and military parties in the search for a negotiated solution”.

Only such urgent international efforts can halt what is threatening to become a repeat of the mass atrocities, war crimes and protracted humanitarian crisis the world witnessed in neighbouring Darfur over the past decade, in Abyei in recent weeks and during the previous war in the Nuba Mountains in the early 1990s. The Sudan Council of Churches is calling on the UN mission in the country to rescue survivors and on the international community to prevent a return to war in Sudan.

For more information please contact:

Rev. Eberhard Hitzler

Co-chair Sudan Ecumenical Forum

The Rest @ Africa Files

Sudan- 200 Killed in SPLA - George Athor Battles

February 16, 2011 (KHATOUM - JUBA) – North Sudan's army has denied accusations of supporting insurgents in South Sudan with the intent of destabilizing the region ahead of its formal independence in July this year.

Clashes erupted last week between South Sudan's army, the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), and militiamen loyal to its renegade general George Athor around the towns of Fangak and Bor in Jonglei state. Southern officials said more than 200 people, including civilians, had died as a result.

The attacks raised concerns about the future of South Sudan which is being groomed to become formally independent in July this year after it massively voted for secession from the north in a referendum last month.

In a press conference on Wednesday, the minister of peace and implementation of the 2005 peace deal that granted the South the right to secede, Pagan Amum, said the Government of Southern Sudan was not overwhelmed by insecurity in South Sudan.

Amum, who also serves as the SPLM's secretary general, said that the situation was being managed and accused Sudan's ruling the National Congress party (NCP) of arming the militia groups such as the forces of George Athor in Jonglei state and Gabriel Tanginya (AKA Tang) in Upper Nile.

• Amum said Athor's militias were also supplied with arms by the National Congress Party in Khartoum to destabilize South Sudan.
• He warned the NCP against the strategy of destabilization of the two soon-to-be independent states of North and South Sudan.
• Amum said the Government of Southern Sudan was ready to receive and integrate into its organized forces all the rebelled forces and militias, in the region in order to achieve security and stability.
• North Sudan's army has denied the south's accusations, claiming it was a cover-up of the South's support of Darfur rebels.

In a statement released to the press on Wednesday, the official spokesman of Sudan Armed Forces (SAF), Al-Sawarmi Khalid Sa'ad, said that the SPLA's accusation come as a “justification” of the South's unlimited support to Darfur rebels who continue “up to this moment” their rebellions from bases they setup southward of 1956 border.

The 1956 border strip marks the North-South borders as they stood when Sudan declared independence from British-Egyptian condominium rule in that year.

North Sudan has consistently accused the south of supporting rebels in its western region of Darfur, where an eight-year conflict between government and ethnic rebels killed more than 300,000 people and displace 2.7 million since it erupted in 2003.

Minni Arkoi Minawi, who is the only Darfur rebel leader to have signed a peace accord with Khartoum in Abuja in 2006, is currently based in the South.

The SAF's statement asserted that it was committed to refrain from supporting any insurgency in neighboring countries, whether in the south or elsewhere, saying that the area from which Athor launches his operations was geographically remote from the North-South border.

Athor broke ranks with the SPLA and led a rebellion in the south since he lost gubernatorial elections in the Unity state to the SPLM's candidate in April last year.

In the same vein, Pagan Amum claimed that Tanginya and his forces came from Khartoum in January with trucks full of weapons and ammunition. He said according to NCP, Tanginya defected from them with the vehicles and weapons, but added that the trucks had traveled from Khartoum to South Sudan's Upper Nile state without being stopped on the way.

In Upper Nile Tanginya's forces form part of the Joint Integrated Units (JIUs) created after the 2005 peace deal. JIUs consist of elements from the Khartoum-controlled Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and the Southern army (SPLA).

However, instead of using regular forces for the SAF contingent of the JIUs in Upper Nile many of the soldiers were taken from Tanginya's militia, which sided with Khartoum during the North-South civil war.

As the South approaches independence JIU's are due to be disbanded and the SAF components moved North.

Late last year Tanginya signed a peace deal with the Southern government, agreeing to integrate his forces into the SPLA. However, many of Tanginya's units remained as the SAF contigent of JIU's in Upper Nile and in early February in fighting between his men in Malakal and others areas caused tens of deaths.

The fighting is believed to have broken out between rival groups within the Tanginya's forces, with some wanting to remain in the South, while others wanted to follow the order they had received to move North.

The clashes, reportedly left his forces in control of many bases of the Northern SAF's JIUs.

The Rest @ Sudan Tribune

Sudanese Women Call for Release of Detainees

February 13, 2011 (KHARTOUM) – A group of Sudanese women on Sunday demonstrated for the second time in a row this week in the capital Khartoum, demanding the release of dozens of detainees held in custody since anti-government protests erupted last month.

Around thirty women whose relatives and sons have been held in detention since the authorities forcibly dispersed anti-government protests on 30 January gathered outside the premises of Sudan's National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) amid heavy police presence.

The protesting women held placards bearing the pictures of the detainees and slogans calling for their freedom, claiming that they had received reports of them being tortured.

Rabah Al-sadiq said they received information about the torture of the detainees. "We heard they are being sprayed with water and electrocuted," Rahab Al-Sadiq, the daughter of Sudan's former Prime Minister and leader of the National Umma Party (NUP), told AFP on Sunday.
According to Rabaha, the authorities are holding more than 70 protestors.

A similar protest occurred last Friday but the women were quickly contained by the police who briefly detained some of them as they marched towards NISS HQ, including Mariam Al-Sadiq, a leading figure in the NUP and also daughter of Al-Sadiq al-Mahdi.
This time, however, the protestors managed to deliver a petition to the NISS demanding that the detainees be freed immediately or charged formally.

The NISS director-general Mohamed Atta Al-Moula met them and pledged to release the detainees on Monday. Nuha Al-Nagar, from the opposition Umma Party told reporters that they decided to suspend their protest to Monday to see whether the security service would respect their promise of not.

Last month's protests were organized by youth groups inspired by the toppling of regimes in Tunisia and Egypt through the use of online media, mainly Facebook. However, the organizers barley managed to assemble few hundreds who were forcibly dispersed by the police using teargas and batons.

The police also arrested dozens in the process, besides eight journalists from the Al-Midan of the opposition Communist Party.

The Sudanese police also broke up today another protest by dozens of journalists gathered outside the National Council for Press and Publications, in Khartoum, demanding the release of detainees from the staff of media outlets and newspapers.

The police seized cameras from journalists who wanted to cover the event, and prevented them from raising any banners demanding the release of their colleagues.

The protesters handed a letter to the press council demanding to secure the release of the detained journalists and to exert more efforts to ensure the respect the freedom of expression for the press.

The ousting of Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak on Friday after weeks of mass protests in Egypt further encouraged other Arab nations to stand up to their abusive rulers.

The secretary general of the council El-Obeid Ahmed said the security service told them the journalists of the communist daily are held for activities not related to their profession.

The Sudanese government, which welcomed the “triumph” of the Egyptian revolution, dismissed the possibility of a similar scenario in the country, attributing the downfall of Arab regimes to their alliance with Israel and the U.S.

Sudan is a major cooperator with the US administration in counterterrorism despite being on its list of countries sponsors of terrorism.

The Rest @ The Sudan Tribune

Sudan Debate

Listen to the resolve....

North Sudan Threatens not to HonorSouth Sudan Referendum

A Sudanese government minister says Khartoum may reject the results of the upcoming referendum on independence for the south.


Youth and sports minister Haj Majid Suwar, a member of President Omar al-Bashir’s National Congress Party, accused the south’s army of venturing out of areas assigned to them by the 2005 peace agreement.


Suwar told reporters the south must withdraw their forces from all disputed areas and allow supporters of a unified Sudan to campaign freely. Otherwise, he said, the north may choose not to recognize the results of the vote and may take its complaints to the United Nations, the United States and the African Union.


A spokesman for the southern army told the Reuters news agency that the accusations were “baseless.” He said all troops were within south Sudan’s borders and were not harassing any campaigners.


Tensions between the north and the south have been rising ahead of the south’s referendum on independence, scheduled for January 9.


Preparations for the voting, including the delineation of a prospective north-south border, are far behind schedule.


Most analysts predict the south will choose independence.


Much of Sudan’s oil wealth is believed to lie along the disputed north-south border. The oil-rich Abyei region is due to hold a separate vote the same day on whether to be part of the north or the south.


The referendum grew out of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005 that ended two decades of civil war between northern and southern Sudan.


At the United Nations Friday, leaders of north and south Sudan vowed to work for peace as U.S

Some information in this story was provided by Bloomberg and Reuters.. President Barack Obama called for an on-time referendum in Sudan.

The Rest @ VOA

Troops Massing on Sudan-Chad Border

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon3 May 2009 – Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon voiced his concern today at reports of the recent build-up and movement of armed elements on both sides of the Chad-Sudan border, and called on the two countries to ease tensions.

“In this context, the Secretary-General welcomes the discussions towards the normalization of bilateral relations between the Governments of Chad and Sudan held this week in Doha,” Mr. Ban''s spokesperson said in a statement issued today.

The Secretary-General, in his most recent report on the deployment of the African Union-United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID), stated that “the security situation along the Sudan-Chad border continued to be tense and unpredictable” during February and March of this year.

Last week in a briefing to the Security Council, Rodolphe Adada, the Joint African Union-UN Special Representative for Darfur and head of UNAMID, cited the state of relations between Sudan and Chad as an important factor with regard to the ongoing conflict in Darfur.

An estimated 300,000 people have been killed and another 2.7 million have been forced from their homes in Darfur since fighting erupted in 2003, pitting rebels against Government forces and allied Janjaweed militiamen.

The Rest@ UN.org
Darfur: blue helmets scaling up protection of civilians, official says

Sudan Oil Exports to Increase 78% by Selling to Asian Companies

By Maher Chmaytelli
March 15 (Bloomberg)

-- Sudan’s oil production will increase by 28 percent this year, unaffected by the conflict with the International Criminal Court about war crimes in the Darfur region, Oil Minister Al-Zubair Ahmed Al-Hassan said.

To lift production, Sudan is relying on Asian companies like Malaysia’s Petroliam Nasional Bhd. and China National Petroleum Corp that are less prone to be swayed by international pressure than Western companies, Al-Hassan said in an interview with Bloomberg in Vienna. “We depend on Asian companies, not Western companies,” he said.

On March 4, the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for the arrest of Sudanese President Umar al-Bashir on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur. Bashir rejected the court’s indictment.

Sudan’s crude oil production will increase to 600,000 barrels a day by the end of the year, from 470,000 barrels a day now, Al-Zubair said, speaking on the sideline of a meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, in which the eastern African nation is an observer.

Sudan will proceed with plans to seek bids this year from foreign oil companies to explore three areas, he said.

The Rest @ Bloomberg

Sudan and Chad agree to Not Support Each other's Rebels

Dakar

After hours of wrangling over the text of their sixth peace accord in two years, Chadian President Idriss Deby and Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir signed the latest agreement late on 13 March in the Senegalese capital, Dakar, vowing once again to stop providing support to rebel groups opposing the other.

The stated aim of the accord is "to put an end, once and for all, to disputes between the two countries and re-establish peace in the sub-region."

The accord was mediated by Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade and signed during the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) summit in the presence of UN Secretary General
Ban Ki-moon and an array of African leaders and Arab and western diplomats.

Past agreements also called on both sides to stop providing safe haven to rebel groups.

• In Chad, rebels bent on ousting President Deby have launched countless attacks including one in February which reached the capital N'djamena.
• In Sudan, rebels are fighting government forces and allied militias in Darfur the region bordering Chad.

A new element in the latest accord is that Chad and Sudan agree to a "contact group" led by Libya and the Republic of Congo which would meet monthly and monitor compliance.

Chadian rebels have already dismissed the new peace pact and vowed to pursue their campaign to overthrow President Deby unless he agreed to a dialogue, according to reports.

Yet the sultan of the Fur, the largest ethnic group in Darfur, was optimistic about the new agreement. "I am hopeful that Sudan and Chad will stop supporting each other's rebels and this will reduce tensions," Sultan Salah Eldine Mahamat Fadoul told IRIN in an exclusive interview while visiting Dakar for the OIC meeting.

"I think Chad and Sudan really need to calm the situation down. The [proxy] war between them has cost them both a lot," he said.

The Rest @ AllAfrica.com

French Recon Soldier Killed On Chad-Sudan Border

EU Chad force to recover missing soldier's body (By Moumine Ngarmbassa)

N'DJAMENA, March 5 (Reuters) - The European Union's military force in Chad is sending a team to Sudan to recover a body which officials there believe is that of a French soldier killed after he strayed over the border, the EU force said on Wednesday.

If the soldier is confirmed dead, it will be the first fatal casualty suffered by the EU force (EUFOR) since it started deploying in late January on a U.N.-backed mission to protect refugees and civilians in conflict-torn eastern Chad.

• The French special forces soldier went missing on Monday after he and a colleague accidentally crossed the Sudanese border in a vehicle near Tissi in the remote region near the Chad, Sudan and Central African Republic frontiers.
• They were fired on by Sudanese troops.
• The other French soldier was wounded but was able to rejoin EU forces.
• France and the EU have apologised to Sudan for the frontier violation.
• EUFOR spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Patrick Poulain said Sudanese authorities had informed EU officials that their forces had found a body in the area where the clash took place.
• The body was being transported to the Sudanese capital Khartoum.
• Ali al-Sadig, a spokesman for Sudan's Foreign Ministry, confirmed the body was in Khartoum and said the French would "confirm whether it is the missing soldier or not".
  

Monday's incident is embarrassing for EUFOR, as its mission in Chad does not include trying to secure the long, porous Chad-Sudan frontier, and much less confronting Sudanese troops.

• The force's mandate is to protect some half a million Sudanese refugees and Chadian civilians who have fled violence spilling over from Sudan's Darfur region.
• "It's unfortunate this happened now, but one of the goals of this reconnaissance is precisely to check out the terrain, especially the frontier, because the maps are rather imprecise," Poulain told Reuters by telephone. He said the EU soldiers' crossing into Sudan had been accidental.
• It had occurred in a rugged bush area with no clear demarcation between the converging frontiers of Chad, Sudan and Central African Republic.

One of the patrol vehicles, which Poulain said carried EUFOR markings, crossed into Sudan without realising it. "It was halted by Sudanese forces and when the others in the patrol came to rescue it, they came under fire," Poulain said.

The French soldier wounded in the clash found his way back to Chadian territory, while the other went missing. His body was thought to be the one recovered by the Sudanese forces.

The Rest @ Reuters Africa

Sudan's Final Solution for Darfur is Underway this week in Chad....What will the World do?

In anticipation of the UN Forces deploying in Sudan, the Sudan has launched its final solution against the African's in Darfur.....

1. The Sudan government supported the move of friendly Rebels into Chad which cut off UN aid to 160,000 Darfur refugees -3 Weeks ago
2. The government turned their troops loose on the Remaining Population. aledgein they are JEM Rebles.-2 weeks ago
3. They captured perhaps 800 Darfur children ages 12-18 - of child soldier age- 1 week ago-
4. In Chad, armed gunmen prevented 179 families them from getting on trucks on the Sudan border to get them to a safe Refugee Camp -3 days ago.
5. The Sudan Government is moving in now to West Darfur-this week

The refugees the Sudanese government scattered before are now at the mercy of the Chad-rebels which the Khartoum government supported -In East Chad-the Chad government is in no position to help as they are still defending their Capital in West Chad.

UN troops in Sudan (Central) already have millions to guard. There is no one left to defend the hundreds of thousands of Darfur refugees....

-Shimron

Chad - The Rebels Won

The Guardian

Chad rebels besiege presidential palace· Déby caught unprepared for swift move on capital · EU delays deployment of Darfur troops as UN leaves Chris McGreal, Africa correspondentMonday February 4, 2008

• Rebel forces cut Chad's capital in two yesterday and laid siege to the palace where President Idriss Déby was overseeing a last effort to save his authoritarian 18-year rule.
  
• Reports said bodies littered the streets of N'Djamena and looters were ransacking shops while government forces resisted the rebel assault with helicopter gunships and tanks.
  
• The assault has forced the European Union to delay the deployment of a 3,700-strong peacekeeping force, dominated by France, to protect hundreds of thousands of Sudanese refugees from Darfur now living in eastern Chad from cross-border raids, and may possibly prevent it taking place at all.
  
• The government in N'Djamena accuses Sudan of backing the rebels to block the European intervention. A Darfuri rebel commander told Reuters yesterday that Sudanese government planes and vehicles were attacking the Chadian border town of Adré.
• French officials said they offered to evacuate Déby but he had refused to leave. France has previously used its forces stationed in Chad to keep threats to Déby at bay but so far the 1,400-strong French military contingent has apparently concentrated on evacuating hundreds of foreigners.
• The defence minister, Hervé Morin, said France will remain neutral in the conflict, perhaps reflecting the promised shift in Africa policy away from propping up unpopular client regimes.
• The United Nations said it was evacuating all its personnel.
• US embassy staff and more than 200 Chinese oil workers were also flown out.
• The French news agency reported French military sources as saying there were about 2,000 rebel fighters and that Déby had up to 3,000 troops.
• It also reported that government helicopters attacked a column of rebels moving towards the main radio station. French Mirage combat planes were seen flying over the city but apparently were not involved in the fighting.
  
• The rebel force attacking N'Djamena is a coalition of three groups led by Timane Erdimi, who is a close relative of Déby, and Mahamat Nouri, a former defence minister. The groups have for several years operated out of Sudan, leading Chad to accuse Khartoum of backing them.
  
• But Déby has clan links to some leaders of the Darfur rebellion, who launched attacks in Sudan and aggravated relations with Khartoum. Two years ago they worsened further after Sudanese militias launched raids on refugees from Darfur in Chad, also driving tens of thousands of Chadians from their homes.
  
• Chad's foreign minister, Ahmad Allam-Mi, has accused Sudan of backing the latest attempt to overthrow Déby in order to block the EU peacekeeping mission.
  "Sudan does not want this force because it would open a window on the genocide in Darfur," he told Radio France Internationale.
  
• He said Sudan was trying "to install a regime in Chad that will bow to it".
  Yesterday Sudan denied backing the rebels. "We are not supporting the rebels. We have no connection with them," a foreign ministry spokesman in Khartoum told Reuters. "They started from eastern Chad and they moved to the capital."
  
• The Libyan leader, Muammar Gadafy, attempted to broker a ceasefire but the rebels are divided and he was apparently unable to get the three factions to agree.
  
• The African Union has said it will not recognise a rebel government if it seizes power.
  

Victory by the rebel United Front for Change, a coalition of three forces, would have important regional consequences. Chad is home to about 420,000 refugees from Sudan's Darfur region, who may be made more vulnerable by a rebel victory because of the UFC's ties to the government in Khartoum. About 180,000 Chadians have also been forced into camps by the conflict.

EU ministers have approved the deployment of 3,700 peacekeepers to eastern Chad to protect refugees and aid operations from cross-border raids from Sudan but that has been held up by the sudden increase in fighting.

The bulk of the force is to come from France, Chad's former colonial ruler. Rebels threatened to attack peacekeepers who stood in their way and one group has declared war on foreign troops.

The rebel assault may also impact on Chad's position as a major oil exporter since the completion of a $3.7bn pipeline linking its oilfields to terminals on the Atlantic coast, run by US and Malaysian multinationals.

Chad has also just signed a major joint venture with China, but most of the Chinese working in the African state have now been evacuated.

The Rest @ The Gaurdian

Hezbollah, a Danger to the EU, Funder of African Terrorism

Deliv­ered June 20, 2007

Hezbollah's Terrorist Threat to the European Union
by James Phillips
Heritage Lecture #1038

Deliv­ered June 20, 2007

Hezbollah ("Party of God"), the radical Lebanon-based Shiite revolutionary movement, poses a clear terrorist threat to international security. Hezbollah ter­rorists have murdered Americans, Israelis, Lebanese, Europeans, and the citizens of many other nations.

Originally founded in 1982, this group has evolved from a local menace into a global terrorist network strongly backed by radical regimes in Iran and Syria, and funded by a web of charitable organizations, crim­inal activities, and front companies.

Hezbollah regards terrorism not only as a useful tool for advancing its revolutionary agenda but as a religious duty as part of a "global jihad." It helped to introduce and popularize the horrific tactic of suicide bombings in Lebanon in the 1980s, developed a strong guerrilla force and a political apparatus in the 1990s, and became a major destabilizing influence in the Arab–Israeli conflict in the last decade.

Prior to September 11, 2001, Hezbollah murdered more Americans than any other terrorist group. Despite al-Qaeda's increased visibility since then, Hezbollah remains a bigger, better equipped, better organized, and potentially more dangerous terrorist organization, in part because it enjoys the unstinting support of the two chief state sponsors of terrorism in the world today—Iran and Syria. Hezbollah's threat potential led former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage to dub it "the A-Team of terrorism."

Hezbollah is a cancer that has metastasized, ex­panding its operations from Lebanon, first to strike regional targets in the Middle East, then far beyond. It now is truly a global terrorist threat that draws fi­nancial and logistical support from the Lebanese Shiite diaspora in the Middle East, Europe, Africa, Southeast Asia, North America, and South America.

Hezbollah fundraising and equipment procurement cells have been detected and broken up in the Unit­ed States and Canada. Europe is believed to contain many more of these cells.

Hezbollah has been implicated in numerous ter­rorist attacks against Americans, including:

• The April 18, 1983, bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut Lebanon, which killed 63 people, including 17 Americans;
• The October 23, 1983, suicide truck bombing of the Marine barracks at Beirut Airport, which killed 241 Marines deployed as part of the mul­tinational peacekeeping force in Lebanon;
• The September 20, 1984, bombing of the U.S. Embassy annex in Lebanon; and
• The 1996 Khobar Towers bombing, which killed 19 American servicemen stationed in Saudi Arabia.
• Hezbollah also was involved in the kidnapping of several dozen Westerners, including 14 Americans, who were held as hostages in Lebanon in the 1980s. The American hostages eventually became pawns that Iran used as leverage in the secret negotiations that led to the Iran-Contra affair in the mid-1980s.

Hezbollah has launched numerous attacks at far-flung targets outside the Middle East. Hezbollah per­petrated the two deadliest terrorist attacks in the his­tory of South America—the March 1992 bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina, which killed 29 people; and the July 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires that killed 96 people.

The trial of those implicated in the 1994 bombing revealed an extensive Hezbollah presence in Argentina and other countries in South America. Hezbollah also was involved in aborted attempts to bomb the Israeli Embassy in Bangkok, Thailand, in 1994, and in a failed plot in Singapore.

Hezbollah's Terrorist Threat in Europe

Hezbollah poses a direct threat to EU citizens at home and those traveling abroad, especially in the Middle East.

Hezbollah established a presence inside European countries in the 1980s amid the influx of Lebanese citizens seeking to escape Leba­non's brutal civil war and the recurring clashes between Israel and Palestinian terrorists based in Lebanese refugee camps. Hezbollah took root among Lebanese Shiite immigrant communities throughout Europe.

German intelligence officials estimate that roughly 900 Hezbollah members live in Germany alone. Hezbollah also has developed an extensive web of fundraising and logistical support cells spread throughout Europe.

France and Britain have been the principal Euro­pean targets of Hezbollah terrorism, in part because both countries opposed Hezbollah's agenda in Leb­anon and were perceived to be enemies of Iran, Hezbollah's chief patron.

Hezbollah has been involved in many terrorist attacks against Europe­ans, including:

• The October 1983 bombing of the French contingent of the multinational peacekeeping force in Lebanon (on the same day as the U.S. Marine barracks bombing), which killed 58 French soldiers;
• The December 1983 bombing of the French Embassy in Kuwait;
• The April 1985 bombing of a restaurant near a U.S. base in Madrid, Spain, which killed 18 Spanish citizens;
• A campaign of 13 bombings in France in 1986 that targeted shopping centers and railroad facilities, killing 13 people and wounding more than 250; and
• A March 1989 attempt to assassinate British novelist Salman Rushdie, which failed when a bomb exploded prematurely, killing a terrorist in London.

Hezbollah attacks in Europe trailed off in the 1990s after Hezbollah's Iranian sponsors accepted a truce in their bloody 1980–1988 war with Iraq and no longer needed a surrogate to punish states that Tehran perceived to be supporting Iraq. But this lull could quickly come to an end if the situation chang­es in Lebanon or Iran is embroiled in another con­flict.

Significantly, the participation of European troops in Lebanese peacekeeping operations, which became a lightning rod for Hezbollah terrorist attacks in the 1980s, could become an issue again today, as Hezbollah attempts to revive its aggressive operations in southern Lebanon.

Belgium, Den­mark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, and Sweden have contributed troops to the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon.

Troops from EU member states may find themselves attacked by Hezbollah with weapons financed by Hezbollah's supporters in their home countries.

According to intelligence officials, Hezbollah operatives are deployed throughout Europe, includ­ing

• Belgium
• Bosnia
• Britain
• Bulgaria
• Croatia
• Cyprus
• Denmark
• France
• Germany
• Greece
• Italy
• Lithuania
• Norway
• Romania
• Russia
• Slovenia
• Spain
• Sweden
• Switzerland
• Turkey
• Ukraine.
  

Radicalizing European Muslims

Europe's vacation from Hezbollah terrorist attacks could come to a swift end if Hezbollah suc­ceeds in its attempts to convert European Muslims to its harsh ideology.

• Young Muslim militants in Ber­lin, asked in a television interview to explain their hatred of the United States and Jews, cited Hezbol­lah's al-Manar TV as one of their main sources of information.

Ideas have consequences.

• In July 2006, four months after Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, in an interview broadcast on al-Manar TV, called for Muslims to take a decisive stand against the Danish cartoons featuring the prophet Mohammed, two Lebanese students sought to bomb two trains in Germany as a reprisal for the cartoons, but the bombs failed to detonate.
  

Clearly, Europeans are exposing themselves to increased risks of terrorism as long as they allow Hezbollah's political and propaganda apparatus to spew a witch's brew of hatred, incitement, and calls for vengeance.

Hezbollah's Role as a Proxy for Iran

Hezbollah is a close ally, frequent surrogate, and terrorist subcontractor for Iran's revolutionary Islamic regime.

Iran played a crucial role in creating Hezbol­lah in 1982 as a vehicle for exporting its revolution, mobilizing Lebanese Shiites, and developing a terror­ist surrogate for attacks on Iran's enemies.

Tehran pro­vides the bulk of Hezbollah's foreign support: arms, training, logistical support, and money.

Iran provides at least $100 million (and probably closer to $200 million) of annual support for Hezbollah and has lav­ishly stocked Hezbollah's expensive and extensive arsenal of Katyusha rockets, sophisticated mines, small arms, ammunition, explosives, anti-ship mis­siles, anti-aircraft missiles, and even unmanned aerial vehicles that Hezbollah can use for aerial surveillance or remotely piloted terrorist attacks.

Iranian Revolu­tionary Guards have trained Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley and in Iran.

Iran has used Hezbollah as a club to hit not only Israel and its Western enemies, but also many Arab countries.

Iran's revolutionary ideology has fed its hostility to other Muslim governments, which it seeks to overthrow and replace with radical allies.

During the Iran–Iraq war, Tehran used Hezbollah to launch terrorist attacks against Iraqi targets and against Arab states that sided with Iraq. Hezbollah launched numerous terrorist attacks against Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, which extended strong financial support to Iraq's war effort, and participated in sev­eral other terrorist operations in Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.

Iranian officials conspired with the Saudi branch of Hezbollah to conduct the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia. Today, Hezbollah continues to cooperate with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards to destabilize Iraq, where both groups help train and equip the Mahdi Army, the radical anti-Western Shiite militia led by the militant cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

By refusing to use its economic leverage over Iran to dissuade Tehran from continuing its troubling nuclear weapons program, the EU is making a mil­itary clash between the United States and Iran much more likely.

In that event, Hezbollah cells through­out Europe are likely to be activated to strike at American, and perhaps NATO, targets.

Even if Hezbollah elects to restrict its focus to American embassies, businesses, and tourists, many Europe­ans are likely to perish in such attacks.

Hezbollah's Ties with Other Terrorist Groups

In addition to the direct threat Hezbollah poses to Europeans, it also poses an indirect threat by vir­tue of its collaboration with other terrorist groups that have targeted Europeans. Many of these groups already have been placed on the EU terrorism list.

Hezbollah has developed a cooperative relation­ship on an ad hoc basis with the al-Qaeda terrorist network and several radical Palestinian groups.

• In June 2002, U.S. and European intelligence officials noted that Hezbollah was "increasingly teaming up with al-Qaeda on logistics and training for terrorist operations."
• Both al-Qaeda and Hezbollah established training bases in Sudan after the 1989 coup that brought the radical National Islamic Front to power.
• Iran's Revolutionary Guards, which also established a strong presence in Sudan to support the Sudanese regime, ran several training camps for Arab radical Islamic groups there and may have facilitated cooper­ative efforts between the two terrorist groups.
  

Another worrisome web of cooperation between Hezbollah, al-Qaeda, and Hamas support networks is flourishing in the tri-border region at the juncture of Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay.

• This lawless and corrupt region has provided lucrative opportunities for Hezbollah supporters to raise funds, launder money, obtain fraudulent documents, pass counter­feit currency, and smuggle drugs, arms, and people.
• Modern terrorist networks often are composed of loosely organized transnational webs of autono­mous cells, which help them to defeat the efforts of various law enforcement, intelligence, and internal security agencies to dismantle them. This decentral­ized structure also helps to conceal the hand of state sponsors that seek to use terrorist groups for their own ends while minimizing the risk of retaliation from states targeted by the terrorists.
  

The amorphous, non-hierarchical nature of the networks, and their linkages with cooperative crim­inal networks, leads to a situation in which some nodes of the web function as part of more than one terrorist group.

This cross-pollination of terrorist networks makes it difficult to determine where one terrorist group ends and another one begins.

There­fore, giving Hezbollah a free pass to operate inside the European Union also aids other groups who are plugged into the same web of criminal gangs, family enterprises, or clan networks.

In 2002, Germany closed down a charitable fundraising organization, the al-Aqsa Fund, which reportedly was a Hamas front that also raised money for Hezbollah.

Hezbollah also has colluded with al-Qaeda affiliates in Asia.

• Abdul Nasser Nooh assisted both Hezbollah and al-Qaeda activities, and Muhammad Amed al-Khalifa, a Hezbollah member, was involved in sending a shipment of explosives to the Philippines through an al-Qaeda front company.
  
• According to U.S. intelligence officials, Hezbol­lah has cooperated with the terrorist network for­merly led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was killed in Iraq in 2006.
• This network officially became part of al-Qaeda in 2004. Despite Zarqawi's militantly anti-Shia views, the two groups have reportedly coordinated terrorist efforts against Israel on an ad hoc basis.
• Zarqawi's network, composed of Sunni extremists from Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, the Pales­tinian territories, Iraq and other countries, has a strong fundraising and support infrastructure in Europe that poses a significant threat to Europeans as well as citizens of a wide range of other countries.

In the Middle East, Hezbollah has cooperated with Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Fatah's Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades to launch terrorist attacks against Israelis.

After the outbreak of the second Palestinian intifada in 2000, Hezbollah's notorious terrorism coordinator, Imad Mugniyah, was selected by Iran to assist Palestinian terrorist operations against Israel.

• Mugniyah reportedly played a role in facilitating the shipment of 50 tons of Iranian arms and military supplies to Pal­estinian militants on board the freighter Karine A, which was intercepted by Israeli naval forces in the Red Sea in January 2002 before its cargo could be delivered.
• Hezbollah has also provided Hamas and other Palestinian extremist groups with tech­nical expertise for suicide bombing.
  

Hezbollah's Destabilizing Influence in the Middle East

Hezbollah threatens the security and stability of the Middle East, and European interests in the Mid­dle East, on a number of fronts. In addition to its murderous campaign against Israel, Hezbollah seeks to violently impose its totalitarian agenda and subvert democracy in Lebanon. Although some experts believed that Hezbollah's participation in the 1992 Lebanese elections and subsequent inclu­sion in Lebanon's parliament and coalition govern­ments would moderate its behavior, its political inclusion brought only cosmetic changes.

After Israel's May 2000 withdrawal from south­ern Lebanon and the September 2000 outbreak of fighting between Israelis and Palestinians, Hezbol­lah stepped up its support for Palestinian extremist groups such as Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

It also expand­ed its own operations in the West Bank and Gaza and provided funding for specific attacks launched by other groups.

In July 2006, Hezbollah forces crossed the inter­nationally recognized border to kidnap Israeli sol­diers inside Israel, igniting a military clash that claimed hundreds of lives and severely damaged the economies on both sides of the border.

Hezbollah is rebuilding its depleted arsenal with financial sup­port from its European fundraising networks. This poses a threat to European soldiers in the U.N. peacekeeping force in Lebanon. To be consistent, the EU should ban such fundraising.

Hezbollah uses Europe as a staging area and recruiting ground for infiltrating terrorists into Isra­el. Hezbollah has dispatched operatives to Israel from Europe to gather intelligence and execute ter­rorist attacks. Examples of Hezbollah operatives who have traveled to Israel from Europe include Hussein Makdad, a Lebanese national who used a forged British passport to enter Israel from Switzer­land in 1996 and injured himself in a premature bomb explosion in his Jerusalem hotel room; Stefan Smirnak, a German convert to Islam who was trained by Hezbollah in Lebanon, and was arrested at Ben Gurion airport after flying to Israel in 1997; Fawzi Ayoub, a Canadian citizen of Lebanese descent, who was arrested in 2000 after traveling to Israel on a boat from Europe; and Gerard Shuman, a dual Lebanese–British citizen, who was arrested in Israel in 2001.
Additionally, long before al-Qaeda and the Tali­ban began to finance their operations using profits from drug smuggling from Afghanistan, Hezbollah was a major supplier of illicit drugs to Europe and other regions.

The organization tapped into long­standing smuggling networks operated by Shiite clans in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, a Hezbollah strong­hold.

• Hezbollah raises money from smuggling Leb­anese opium, hashish, and heroin.
• It also traffics in illicit drugs in the tri-border region of South Amer­ica.
• Hezbollah cells also engage in other forms of criminal activity, such as credit card fraud and traf­ficking in "conflict diamonds" in Sierra Leone, Con­go, and Liberia to finance their activities.
  

The EU's Ostrich-Like Policy Regarding Hezbollah

The United States long has designated Hezbollah as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. Australia, Can­ada, and the Netherlands have followed suit. The United Kingdom has placed the "Hezbollah Exter­nal Security Organization" on its terrorist list.

-But the European Union has dragged its feet on taking serious action against Hezbollah-

In May 2002, the EU added 11 organizations and seven individuals to its financial sanctions list for ter­rorism. This was the first time that the EU froze the assets of non-European terrorist groups. But it did not sanction Hezbollah as an organization—only several individual leaders, such as Imad Mugniyah.

By taking these half-measures, the EU mistaken­ly has embraced the fallacy that terrorist operations can be separated from the other activities of a radical organization. Attempts to compartmentalize the perceived threat by accepting the fiction that a "political wing" is qualitatively different from a "mil­itary wing" are self-defeating. This is a distinction without a difference.

Hezbollah's raison d'être is to violently impose its totalitarian ideology on Muslims and forge a radical Islamic state determined to destroy Israel and drive out Western and other non-Islamic influences from the Muslim world.

No genuine "political party" would finance suicide bombings and accumulate an arsenal of over 10,000 rockets to be indiscriminate­ly launched at civilians in a neighboring country.

Agreeing to accept a false distinction between political and terrorist wings is also dangerous. It allows Hezbollah to continue raising money for vio­lent purposes. Money is fungible. Funds raised in Europe, ostensibly to finance charitable and politi­cal causes, can free up money to finance terrorist attacks or can be diverted to criminal activities.

The recent violent convulsion in Gaza and last summer's war in Lebanon underscore the great dangers inher­ent in treating radical Islamic movements as normal political parties.

Hezbollah leaders themselves see little distinction between political and terrorist activity (which they consider to be "military" or "resistance" actions).

• Mohammed Raad, one of Hezbollah's representatives in the Lebanese parliament, proclaimed in 2001, "Hezbollah is a military resistance party, and it is our task to fight the occupation of our land. There is no separation between politics and resistance."
• In 2002, Mohammed Fannish, a Hezbollah political leader and former Lebanese Minister of Energy, declared: "I can state that there is no separating between Hezbol­lah military and political aims."

The EU also excluded the fundraising network of Hamas from the terrorism list in 2002. But in August 2003, the EU reversed itself and classified all of Hamas as a terrorist organization.

It is high time to do the same with Hezbollah.

Some Europeans may hope that by passively accepting Hezbollah's fundraising activities, the EU can escape its terrorism. But this ostrich-like policy ignores the fact that fundraising cells easily can transform themselves into operational terrorist cells if called on to do so. Hezbollah cells are like stem cells that can morph into other forms and take on new duties. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has warned that Hezbollah support cells inside the United States could also undertake terrorist attacks. The same is true in Europe.

Individual EU member states, such as France and Germany, have previously taken legal action against Hezbollah. Germany has deported Hezbol­lah operatives and France banned Hezbollah's al-Manar television network in 2004. But such actions were undertaken in an ad hoc manner on a country-by-country basis, not in a systematic manner by the EU as a whole. Given that protecting citizens is the highest duty of the state, such half-hearted piece­meal policies are irresponsible.

Putting Hezbollah on the EU terrorism list would require the consent of all 27 EU member states. Such action would oblige each member to prohibit the channeling of money from European entities and individuals to Hezbollah, and to seize Hezbol­lah assets in the EU. On March 10, 2005, the EU Parliament voted overwhelmingly to adopt a resolu­tion that affirmed Hezbollah's involvement in terror­ist activities and ordered the EU Council to "take all necessary steps to curtail" Hezbollah.

But France, Spain, and Belgium have blocked action in recent years. French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier in February 2005 justified French opposition to declaring Hezbollah to be a terrorist group by saying: "Hezbollah has a parliamentary and political dimension in Lebanon. They have members of parliament who are participating in parliamentary life. As you know, political life in Lebanon is difficult and fragile."

But one major rea­son that life is so "difficult and fragile" in Lebanon is that Hezbollah, backed by Iran and Syria, seeks to intimidate democratic forces in Lebanon through the use of terrorism. Taking a stand against Hezbollah not only would undermine its ability to finance terrorism against its Lebanese opponents, but would also make life much less difficult in Leb­anon in the long run.

Classifying Hezbollah as a terrorist organization would significantly constrain its ability to operate in Europe and severely erode its ability to raise funds there and use European banks to transfer funds around the globe.

• All EU member states would be required to freeze Hezbollah assets and prohibit Hezbollah-related financial transactions.
• Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah recognized the damage that this would do to his organization in a March 2005 interview aired on Hezbollah's al-Manar television network: "The sources of [our] funding will dry up and the sources of moral, political, and material support will be destroyed."

But France in particular has blocked action on tak­ing the logical next step with Hezbollah. The recent election of Nicolas Sarkozy as France's new president offers hope for a major shift in the French position. Sarkozy hopefully will replace Jacques Chirac's "See No Evil" wishful thinking with a principled stand against permitting a lethal killing machine to infect alienated European Muslims with its violent ideology, milk them of money to finance mass murder, and brainwash them to become suicide bombers against a wide array of targets.

What EU Leaders Should Do

European Union leaders must be persuaded to take concerted and systematic action against Hezbollah.

• First and foremost, they must under­stand that in the long run, this is the best way to protect their own people, the highest duty of gov­ernment. Wishful thinking about the possibility of inducing Hezbollah to stray from the fundamental tenets of its own ideology will compromise the security of EU citizens. Turning a blind eye to Hezbollah's activities will only allow it to metasta­size into a more deadly threat. Cracking down on Hezbollah activities would not only reduce the potential terrorist threat, but would reduce the threat of its ancillary activities, such as drug smug­gling, criminal enterprises, and efforts to radicalize European Muslim communities.
  
• Second, EU leaders can be criticized for the strained logic behind their current position. It makes little sense to designate individual Hezbollah leaders as terrorists, but continue to permit the organization to raise money for their deadly work. It is a mistake to exempt Hezbollah's "political wing" from responsibility for the crimes perpetrated by the "military wing" that executes its orders. Running a hospital or an orphanage does not absolve an organization for the murder of innocents. The EU must be proactive and uproot Hezbollah's support infrastructure in Europe in order to curtail the activ­ities of its terrorist thugs around the world.
  
• Third, EU leaders should be asked to join the multilateral efforts of their democratic allies to pro­tect all of their citizens from the attacks of totalitarian Islamic extremists. There is an ideological dimension to this conflict, as well as a terrorist dimension. It would be irresponsible for the EU to stay neutral in this global ideological struggle, given the presence of a growing Muslim population inside Europe that could fall prey to radical Islamic ideologies.

Banning Hezbollah also would be a step that would help stabilize the volatile Middle East and support Arab–Israeli peace efforts. Even the Pales­tinian Authority requested that the EU ban Hezbol­lah in 2005, complaining that Hezbollah was recruiting Palestinian suicide bombers to sabotage the tenuous truce with Israel.

Putting Hezbollah on the EU terrorism list also would help stabilize Lebanon. U.N. Security Council Resolution 1559, jointly sponsored by France and the United States, calls for the disarming of all militias in Lebanon. Yet EU toleration of Hezbollah fundraising operations inside its own borders enables efforts to finance the purchase of arms and ammunition for the biggest and most dangerous militia in Lebanon. Add­ing Hezbollah to the EU terrorism list would be an important step toward disarming its militia and restoring the rule of law in Lebanon.

Banning Hezbollah also would contribute to the containment of Iran's rising power. Tehran has used its Lebanese surrogate to advance its own radical foreign policy agenda in the past and is sure to do so again.

The U.S. Congress has played a role in appealing for greater cooperation from the EU in curtailing Hezbollah's activities. The House of Representa­tives, in March 2005, passed H. Res. 101, which urged the EU to add Hezbollah to its terrorist list. The Senate followed suit the next month. Congress should continue to press the EU to do the right thing regarding Hezbollah by passing further reso­lutions and holding hearings such as this one to educate EU leaders and their constituencies about the potential challenges posed by Hezbollah.

The EU can no longer afford to ignore Hezbollah's festering threat or hope to deflect its attacks onto other countries. The longer the EU balks at effective action, the stronger the potential threat grows, fund­ed by the free flow of donations, diverted charitable funds, and criminal booty out of the EU and the pay­ments for drugs smuggled into the EU.

As Winston Churchill observed, "An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last." The Hezbollah crocodile has eaten half of Leb­anon and has laid dangerous eggs around the world. The EU must take proactive action, not wait for these eggs to hatch.

James Phillips is Research Fellow for Middle East­ern Affairs in the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies, a division of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies, at The Heritage Foundation. These remarks were deliv­ered June 20, 2007, as testimony before the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on Europe.

The Heritage Foundtion

Failed Attack by Sudan-Backed FUC Rebels (April 2006)

Chad's president has claimed a victory over attacking rebels, after intense fighting that authorities say has left 350 people dead. But who are the insurgents, and what do they want? Joe Bavier looks into the question.

In the capital, N'Djamena, around 150 men were paraded before journalists in a public square Friday. Chad's government says they are rebel fighters, who were captured during Thursday's fighting in the capital. Chadian officials said the men were mercenaries, allegedly hired by the country's eastern neighbor, Sudan. Chad's president, Idriss Deby, has repeatedly accused Khartoum of backing the rebels.

And on Friday, Chad announced it was severing diplomatic ties with Sudan. Sudan denies giving any support to the rebel group, United Front for Change, known by the French acronym FUC.

Experts say the group's origins are far from clear, but it is believed to include many former members of Chad's army. Rebels began launching attacks late last year along the Sudanese border. In December, a movement, known as the Rally for Democracy and Liberty, attacked the town of Adre in open fighting with the Chad army. Soon after that, the Rally for Democracy and Liberty announced the formation of the FUC, a grouping of nine armed movements with a shared goal: the overthrow of President Deby. Chad has been wracked by civil war, coup attempts and insurgencies for more than three decades. Mr. Deby, himself, came to power in a 1990 coup.

Many of those involved in the FUC have close ethnic ties with Mr. Deby, with some coming from his own ethnic group, the Zaghawa. But Chad expert Richard Barltrop says the motivators in the latest violence are more complex than ethnic rivalries.

"The explanation probably lies more on political and economic factors than tribal and clan," he said. "Certainly, it's true that the Zaghawa aren't monolithic, and, therefore, you should not expect uniform loyalty among the Zaghawa."

President Deby recently pushed through changes to the constitution that allow him to run for a third term in office. The move was criticized by opposition leaders, who have vowed to boycott the polls, scheduled for early May.

And, the FUC has vowed to topple Mr. Deby before the election. Analyst Barltrop says it could be that the president has simply collected too many enemies during his long stint in power.

"Given that Deby has been in power for coming on 16 years now, he will have generated quite enough opponents for political and economic reasons [that have] to do with the share of power and economic positions," he added.

Chad recently became an oil exporting nation, a fact some experts say has raised the economics and political stakes.

Finally, Barltrop says, President Deby's claims that Sudan is backing the rebels should be taken seriously. The president, himself a former rebel leader, toppled his predecessor, Hissene Habre, in 1990, launching a rebellion from Sudan's western Darfur province that most analysts agree was likely supported by Khartoum.

"What's happening now has happened before in Chad," he explained. "It is quite similar to political reversals in the 1980's. The similarity to 1990 is uncanny."

Beginning Sunday, the rebels led an advance, traveling from strongholds in the east, to arrive to within striking distance of N'Djamena late Wednesday. Fighting in the Chadian capital began before dawn Thursday, and lasted several hours, before President Deby claimed a victory for government forces.

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