Head of the National Congress Party. He came to power in 1989 when he, as a brigadier in the Sudanese army, led a group of officers in a bloodless military coup that ousted the government of Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi and eventually appointed himself president. Omar's peculiar talent lies in starting conflict. He has fallen out with his Islamic mentor, Hasan al-Turabi, tried to impose shariah on the Christian and animist south, resulting in its imminent secessesion, and attempted to
ArabizeDarfur by unleashing the barbaric Janjaweed on it. Sudan's potential prosperity has been pissed away in warfare that has left as many as 400,000 people dead and 2.5 million displaced. Omar has been indicted for genocide by the International Criminal Court but nothing is expected to come of it.
, the Sudanese president, has ordered his army to continue fighting in South Kordofan state until it has "cleaned" the border area of rebels.
"I ordered the Sudanese Armed Forces to continue their operations in South Kordofan until they clean the state of rebels," Bashir said during a speech at Friday prayers in a Khartoum mosque.
Heavy fighting
... as opposed to the more usual light or sporadic fighting...
has raged in the state since June 5, as government forces have taken on Southern-aligned gangs.
His statement was broadcast on national television, and comes just eight days before the south of the country officially secedes.
The conflict in South Kordofan has escalated tensions between north and south Sudan.
"Many people may think that this is going to be an open war with the South or that it might lead to a great crisis [...] at this particular time," Al Jizz's Mohamed Vall reported from Khartoum.
"At the moment, we know that this is so far limited to the South Kordofan region, which is not part of the South, and SPLM (North), which is fighting this war against the Sudanese government, is not actually any longer an official part of the SPLM (South), which is ruling south Sudan."
Suliman Baldo, the Africa director at the International Centre for Transitional Justice (ICTJ), told Al Jizz that he did not think there would be a war between the north and south Sudan.
ICTJ is an international organization based in New York, that helps to address human rights
...which are usually entirely different from personal
liberty...
abuses during times of a changeover from conflict or state repression.
Baldo said he expected there to be a "war by proxy".
The "government of Khartoum... relies on militias that are ethnically recruited to attack gangs that challenge the authority or the central government or who claim more share in power, more recognition of their culture and ethnic diversity within a broader Sudan".