KHARTOUM: Sudan and Darfur rebels on Tuesday dismissed as baseless a claim by an Egyptian state-run newspaper that Iran was behind a brazen rebel attack on Khartoum earlier this month.
Iran played an important role in the coup attempt by the Justice and Equality Movement, Al-Gomhuria alleged in a front-page report, attributed only to unnamed sources.
Sudanese forces searching the rebel JEM movement found modern Iranian weapons with them, the paper said, claiming that Sudanese authorities had also seized large amounts of ammunition and Iranian equipment.
On May 10, JEM rebels attacked Omdurman, one of three adjacent cities that make up greater Khartoum, the first time that domestic conflicts gripping Sudan for decades have come so close to the seat of power.
Sudan organized a huge public display of trucks, weapons and ammunition apparently captured from the Darfur rebels, and blamed Chad for financing and backing the rebels. No mention of Iran has surfaced in public at any point.
JEM flatly denied any links with Iran. The Sudanese foreign ministry and a spokesman for the Khartoum government told AFP that the Al-Gomhuria article was the first they had heard of any allegations against Tehran.
That s funny … It doesn t make sense. We don t have any relation with Iran.
We don t talk to them, they don t talk to us, said London-based Gibril Ibrahim Mohamed, who calls himself an advisor to JEM commander Khalil Ibrahim.
I don t think this Gomhuria newspaper has a real source. … There is no issue like that in our media or our decision-making department, said Rabbie Abdul Atti, who speaks for the government in Khartoum.
The Sudanese army said more than 222 people were killed as troops countered the JEM advance. They included nearly 100 troops and 34 civilians, two of them Egyptian. Sudan has since broken off diplomatic ties with Chad.
Al-Gomhuria compared the JEM leader to Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Lebanon s powerful Shia fighting movement Hezbollah, and Khaled Meshaal, exiled political supremo of Palestinian hardline Islamist group Hamas.
Both groups are backed by Iran.
The Islamist-inspired JEM is the most powerful military rebel group fighting pro-government forces in the western Sudanese region of Darfur, where conflict has raged since 2003.
Egypt has blamed Iran for backing conflicts in the region, including Lebanon and the Palestinian territories.
Diplomatic ties were broken in 1980, a year after the Islamic revolution, in protest at Egypt s recognition of Israel, its hosting of the deposed shah and its support for Iraq during its 1980-1988 war with Iran.
Relations have recently warmed, with both countries signaling a willingness to restore ties. In January, President Hosni Mubarak held talks with Iran s parliament speaker Gholam Ali Hada Adel, the first such high-level meeting in almost 30 years.
