Sudan rebels launch ‘big offensive’ in Kordofan

KHARTOUM: Sudanese rebels say they have launched a major operation against an area in South Kordofan which a controversial counter-insurgency unit showed off to journalists after “liberating” it last week.
The local commander of the government troops, known as Rapid Support-2, was reported killed.
“Our forces launched (a) big offensive in Daldako,” Arnu Ngutulu Lodi, spokesman for the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N), told AFP late Saturday in an e-mail.
Fighting continued into Saturday evening, said Lodi, who could not be contacted on Sunday.
Troops from Rapid Support-2 said they had seized the strategic Daldako area, 17 km northeast of South Kordofan’s state capital Kadugli, on May 18.
Two days later they flew journalists to the area, allowing a rare visit to a war zone where access is tightly restricted.
Troops held a victory rally, followed by another one the next day in the capital Khartoum.
But on Sunday the Al-Sudani newspaper, quoting Defense Minister Abdelrahim Mohammed Hussein, said the Daldako field commander of Rapid Support-2 had been killed in the rebel counter-attack.