Posted on 05/03/2005 6:54:42 AM PDT by SJackson
Washington, May 1. (Guardian News Service): Sudan's Islamist regime, once shunned by Washington for providing a haven for Osama bin Laden as well as for human rights abuses during decades of civil war, has become an ally in the Bush administration's "war on terror".
Only months after the then US secretary of state, Colin Powell, accused Khartoum of genocide in Darfur, Sudan has become a crucial intelligence asset to the CIA.
In the Middle East and Africa, Sudan's agents have penetrated networks that would not normally be accessible to America, one former US intelligence official told the Guardian.
Some of that cooperation has spilled over into the war on Iraq; Sudan is credited with detaining foreign militants on their way to join anti-American fighters there.
Sudanese agents have also helped the CIA to monitor Islamist organisations in Somalia.
"The intelligence relationship is the strongest thread between Washington and Khartoum," the official said. "Khartoum is probably the only government in the Arab League that has contributed in a major way to the protection of US forces and citizens in Iraq."
News of the growing cooperation was first reported in Los Angeles Times.
The paper traced the thaw in relations since 2001 and also reported that Sudan's secret police had begun a crackdown on suspected Islamists, shared evidence with the FBI and allowed US personnel to interrogate al-Qaeda suspects.
Officially, Washington's position towards Sudan remains unchanged. "Sudan is still considered a state sponsor of terror," a state department spokesman said on Saturday.
And although the recent cooperation has yielded important results, it promises to be politically explosive.
The US Christian right and human rights organisations have been strong advocates of the Sudanese rebels, and are unlikely to support any softening of Washington's stance.
But that is precisely what Sudan wants, the Los Angeles Times reported. In return for its help, it wants to be removed from the list of state sponsors of terror, as well as the lifting of economic sanctions.
Suddenly the jihadist Sudanese are friends, or should that be fiends?
"Sudan has become a crucial intelligence asset to the CIA. In the Middle East and Africa, Sudan's agents have penetrated networks that would not normally be accessible to America, one former US intelligence official told the Guardian. Some of..."
Scott Ritter?
Sure.
The Sudan military dictatorship, certainly jihadist when it was directed by Hasan al-Turabi, veered away from that position following the ouster of Turabi in the late nineteen nineties. While it may provide the US with intel data, the present government is still viciously racist, and it serves as a tool of the Muslim Brotherhood leadership which does not appreciate the crazies interfering with its money-making.
Let's just hope we can keep this a secret.
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