Top > World > 2006 > June > 2006-06-13

Sudanese Tribal Leaders Warn of Jihad

Efforts to prevent genocide in Darfur, Sudan have run into another hurdle, this time in the form of tribal leaders in Khartoum threatening ?holy war? if non-African troops are sent to try and prevent the deaths of innocents targeted by the ?janjaweed? Islamic militias backed by the Sudanese government. The violence in Sudan erupted when African rebel groups rose up against the Arab-led government in 2003, and while Khartoum has denied supporting the Arab groups slaughtering African natives it recently agreed to disband them.

As the United Nations Security Council took up the issue of sending peacekeepers to Sudan to enforce U.N. resolutions aimed at preventing the genocide there, the tribal leaders issued a warning. According to one tribal leader, ?The root causes of the Darfur conflict are the doing of the Jewish organizations who financed this armed rebellion. We don`t want the Security Council to be an instrument of the ugly undertakings of the United States of America. If a U.N. force comes to Sudan, we are declaring jihad against it.?

Two million black Sudanese have already been made homeless as a result of the fighting between African groups and Arab militias, and estimates of those killed range from 100,000 to 450,000. A recent mission by U.N. members to the area didn?t visit many of the displaced persons camps set up there, as such volatile areas could lead to outbreaks of more violence. Even so, tribal leaders said the U.N. visit aimed to remind Sudanese not of the plight of blacks in the country but rather of their colonial past.