Sudan denies rebel attack
2007-12-28 21:36
Khartoum - The Sudanese military on Friday denied that rebels in the strife-torn Darfur region had shot down a government aircraft.
"This is just false information," armed forces spokesperson General Othman al-Aghbach told the Sudanese Media Centre news agency which is close to Sudanese intelligence services.
He added that the rebels "are seeking political gain by putting out sensational information," referring to the Justice and Equality Movement which on Thursday claimed it had downed a Sudanese army Antonov 24 in south Darfur.
JEM leader Khalil Ibrahim said that rebels hit the plane as it flew over Geneina, the main city of west Darfur which rebels claim to have surrounded, but that it went down near south Darfur's main town of Nyala.
A military source quoted by the Al-Sudani daily said that the rebels were "incapable of imposing an aerial exclusion zone above Darfur" after Ibrahim declared "Darfur a no-fly zone".
The JEM leader said this applied to "government aviation including commercial flights and we ask that organisations like the United Nations inform us in advance of their flight plans so that they are not targeted".
The Darfur conflict erupted in February 2003 when ethnic minority rebels rose up against Khartoum to demand an end to the political and economic marginalisation of their huge region the size of France.
Khartoum's response was to back the Arab Janjaweed militia and give it free rein to crack down on the rebels and civilians suspected of supporting them.