KHARTOUM - Sudan's army has denied attacking the only Darfur rebel faction to sign a peace deal with Khartoum, saying tribal clashes was to blame for the fighting which killed 45 people in Muhajiriya town.
The Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) led by Minni Arcua Minnawi was the only one of three negotiating rebel factions to sign the May 2006 deal and become part of government. Muhajiriya in South Darfur is the largest town under their control.
Minnawi's faction said Monday's attack, which they said killed 45 people and destroyed half the town, was a "stab in the back of the peace deal".
And rebels said militias mobilised by the government, known as Janjaweed, along with a small number of army soldiers were still burning villages around Muhajiriya on Wednesday.
"There are planes bombing in South Darfur," said SLA Unity faction commander Abu Bakr Kadu. "The militias along with some government troops are attacking and burning civilian villages."
But the army says it was not involved in Monday's attack.
"The Sudan Armed Forces affirmed that what is happening in the Muhajiriya area is tribal clashes between the people of the area and has no relation with the Sudanese army which took no part in it," it said in a statement issued late on Tuesday, its first public reaction to the rebel accusations.
Analysts say the upsurge in fighting ahead of talks due to begin in Libya on Oct. 27 is a land grab to garner stronger negotiating positions.
As with many of the goings on in remote Darfur, the size of France, early reports on Muhajiriya were mired in confusion.
AU force commander Martin Luther Agwai, who will also command a 26,000-strong joint U.N.-AU force due to take over from the AU, had said government planes had bombed the town.
But he later said his troops had mistaken heavy artillery for aerial bombardment and said although Antonov planes were flying overhead during the attack, they had not released bombs.
PEACE TALKS
