Clashes erupted after midnight early Friday in Sudan's Blue Nile state, as government forces quickly expelled from its capital city forces loyal to Gov. Malik Agar, who heads the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North opposition party.
Agar's party - once part of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement rebel group, which now rules the country of South Sudan, which separated from Sudan in July after decades of war - says the attacks are a clear sign that President Omar al-Bashir
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-for-life. He has fallen out with his Islamic mentor, Hasan al-Turabi, tried to impose shariah on the Christian and animist south, resulting in its 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.
has no intention of making peace.
"They are on the record saying that they will not allow the SPLM to stay in the north," said Yasir Arman, the secretary-general of the northern opposition party, speaking of members of al-Bashir's regime.
"We still seek a peaceful settlement, but it takes two to tango," he said.