Sudan spying for US in Somalia and Iraq

[Jacaylbaro]

The Sudan government is secretly providing the US with information about Al Qaeda operatives in Somalia and the insurgency in Iraq, the Los Angeles Times recently reported. The Islamist government in Khartoum is carrying out these espionage activities even though the US has imposed economic sanctions on Sudan as a result of the carnage in Darfur, the newspaper noted.

Critics of US policy toward Sudan, quoted in the LA Times article, say that Khartoum’s co-operation with the Central Intelligence Agency shows that the sanctions carry little sting.

 

The counter-terrorism link between Khartoum and Washington “is the single biggest contributor to why the gap between rhetoric and action is so large” in regard to Darfur, John Prendergast told the paper. Now an East Africa analyst for the non-governmental International Crisis Group, Prendergast served during the Clinton administration as Africa director for the National Security Council.

 

The steady flow of fighters from Arab countries passing through Sudan en route to Iraq has enabled the Mukhabarat, Sudan’s version of the CIA, to insert spies into the Iraqi insurgency, the Times said in its June 11 report.

 

“As a result,” reporters Greg Miller and Josh Meyer write, “Sudan’s spies have often been in better position than the CIA to gather information on Al Qaeda’s presence in Iraq, as well as the activities of other insurgent groups.”

 

The Times quotes an unnamed former CIA official as observing, “There’s not much that blond-haired, blue-eyed case officers from the United States can do in the entire Middle East, and there’s nothing they can do in Iraq. Sudanese can go places we don’t go. They’re Arabs. They can wander around.”

 

Sudan is also helping the US track the Islamist movement in Somalia, the Times says. Khartoum officials “cultivate contacts with the Islamic Courts Union and other militias in an effort to locate Al Qaeda suspects hiding there,” Miller and Meyer report.

 

“Sudan has its own interests in following the insurgency, because Sudanese extremists and foreign fighters who pass through the country are likely to return and become a potentially destabilising presence,” the Times says.

 

But Sudan’s help in Iraq has been of limited value to the US, according to an unnamed former CIA official who operated in Baghdad.

 

“There’s not going to be a Sudanese guy near the top of the Al Qaeda in Iraq leadership,” this source told the Times. “They might have some fighters there, but that’s just cannon fodder. They don’t have the trust and the ability to work their way up. The guys leading Al Qaeda in Iraq are Iraqis, Jordanians and Saudis.”

 

It has been known for some time that despite their apparent enmity, Khartoum and Washington work closely in tracking Islamist militants.

 

The relationship was confirmed by Sudan President Omar al-Bashir in an interview with a US television network in March. “Yes, there is co-operation with those bodies, the institutions within the framework of fighting terrorism,” Mr Bashir said in an interview with NBC News. “We collaborate — from our perspective we are against terrorism.”

 

Mr Bashir and other Sudanese officials have declined to specify the nature of the country’s counter-terrorism relationship with Washington. But Sudan’s ambassador to the US, John Ukec Lueth Ukec, acknowledged in the LA Times story that the assistance his government is providing to the US “is not only in Sudan.”

 

Meanwhile, Sudan Foreign Minister Lam Akol says the government will take part in peace talks with rebels fighting in Darfur.

 

The talks in August have been organised by the African Union and the UN to try to get the peace process back on track.

 

The Darfur Peace Agreement in Abuja last year was widely unpopular — only one rebel group backed the document, says a statement from the AU. Since then the security situation in the west of Sudan has deteriorated. Now there is a major push to open fresh talks.

 

Akol was recently quoted as saying, “Any time they want the peace talks to start, we have always been ready”.

 

Following talks between the government and members of the UN Security Council just over a week ago, there is a sense of cautious optimism in Sudan. The Sudanese government appear to have unconditionally backed plans for a 20,000-strong UN-AU hybrid peacekeeping operation in Darfur.

 

But some still remain sceptical, noting that Khartoum has signed many deals in the past but there has been little in the way of implementation.

 

 

HERE

[Peacenow]

If this is so then this is shameful. If this is not true then it is part of what would be a well orchestered campaign to ruin this government. Either way, they will be getting nervous in Khartoum these nights.

[Malika]

As if they havent done enough, causing chaos within the Islamic countries mentioned,now they are trying to turn Islamic nations against each other...

[Jacaylbaro]

Never trust those administrations wherever they are ,,,, they have 2 faces, one for us and another one for the US ..... it is just like Djibouti supporting the ICU and hosting the American military at the same time ,,,