Al Qaeda No. 2: Sudan’s president pandered to West

Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, facing an international arrest warrant, is paying the price for pandering to the West, al Qaeda’s second-in-command said in an audio statement released Tuesday. “I am not defending Omar al-Bashir or his regime, nor am I defending what it has done in Darfur and elsewhere,” Ayman al-Zawahiri said in the statement released by al Qaeda’s production company, as-Sahab Media. But, he said, “the issue isn’t one of Darfur and solving its problems; the issue is one of making excuses for more foreign interference in the Muslims’ countries in the framework of the contemporary Zionist Crusade.” The warrant issued by the International Criminal Court earlier this month accuses al-Bashir of war crimes and crimes against humanity, charges he denies

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Peacekeeper dies in Darfur shootout

Gunmen killed a United Nations peacekeeper in the Darfur region of western Sudan on Tuesday. Eight gunmen opened fire on six peacekeepers in the city of Niyala, in the southern part of Darfur, said Josephine Guerrero, a spokeswoman for a joint peacekeeping operation of the United Nations and African Union in Darfur.

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Abducted aid workers released in Darfur

Sudanese authorities have said a team of its doctors abducted Wednesday in Darfur has been released, the medical humanitarian organization Medecins Sans Frontieres said Friday A Canadian nurse, an Italian doctor and a French coordinator were abducted Wednesday night. Two Sudanese workers were also captured and freed, the group said. The incident took place in Serif Umra, the Sudanese province in northern Darfur

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Sudanese ambassador: Ousted aid groups were ‘spoiling’ country

Sudan’s ambassador to the United Nations on Friday defended his nation’s decision to expel 16 nongovernment aid organizations, charging they were "messing up everything," "spoiling," and "destabilizing" his country. Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem Mohamad said the government took action because the North African nation has evidence the suspended nongovernment organizations repeatedly acted outside their humanitarian mandate and were working with the International Criminal Court in its investigation into the conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan

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Sudan orders aid agency expulsions

Sudan ordered a number of international aid agencies to leave the country Wednesday after an arrest warrant was issued for the country’s president, a United Nations source in the capital city of Khartoum said. The International Criminal Court issued the warrant earlier Wednesday for President Omar Hassan al-Bashir for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

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U.N.: 15,000 flee southern Darfur

Thousands of people have fled recent violence in south Darfur, seeking security and shelter at a refugee camp in north Darfur, the United Nations said Wednesday. The U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported that fighting in Muhajeria and Shearia between Sudanese government forces, and the rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), drove over 15,000 people north to the Zam Zam camp. The water supply to the camp is becoming strained with displaced people arriving there every day, OCHA has said.

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