(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-05-11 09:00

During the fiercest time of the fighting, heavy explosions and gun shots echoed every corner in Omdurman Area, which is the north gate of the Sudanese capital leading to Darfur, a Xinhua correspondent reported from a nearby street.

He said that the army troops used artilleries, tanks and helicopters to confront the rebels equipped with machine guns and grenades.

Meanwhile, Large crowds of armed soldiers and policemen appeared on the main roads in other parts of Khartoum, and the bridges on the Nile River between central Khartoum and Omdurman were closed.

This was the first time for the Darfur rebels to infiltrate the capital and launch attacks there since bloody conflict erupted in the western Sudanese region in February 2003.

Imposing a curfew in Khartoum as of 17:00 p.m. Saturday till 06:00 a.m. Sunday, the Sudanese Ministry of Interior called on the local residents to be cautious and to remain in their homes.

Since Thursday, the Sudanese government has repeatedly warned that rebels coming from Darfur were plotting to infiltrate the capital in order to carry out sabotage activities and arouse panic among the local residents.

The JEM, which terms itself as the biggest movement in Darfur, has refused to sit side by side with other rebel groups, some of them have a very small membership, on the negotiation table with the government, and demanded face-to-face talks with the government.

On May 5, 2006, the Sudanese government signed the Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA) with a main faction of the Darfur rebel movements in the Nigerian Capital Abuja.

But the DPA, which is also called the Abuja Agreement, has been rejected by most other rebel groups including JEM, which demanded more compromises from the government.

In October last year, the Sudanese government held a fresh round of peace negotiations with several minor rebel groups in Sirte, Libya, without achieving tangible outcomes.

The JEM, along with other major rebel movements, boycotted the Sirte talks, which were sponsored jointly by the United Nations and the African Union.

Most of attacks on the government forces and African Union peacekeepers in the restive Darfur in the past months were believed to have been carried out by the JEM.

Khartoum routinely accused the Chadian government of supporting JEM rebels, but the accusation has been denied by N'djamena.

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