Rebels from the war-torn Sudanese region of Darfur seized a town in a neighbouring province, sparking clashes that killed at least 12 people in a spillover of the conflict, the army said Tuesday.
The Sudanese army said the town of Hamrat al-Sheikh in North Kordofan province was attacked Monday by forces linked to the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), which has rejected a Darfur peace deal.
Residents fled as air support was called in to back up police and security forces battling to repel the attack, it said in a statement. Fighting was "going on till late Monday night to liberate the town from the armed men".
Provincial governor Faisal Hassan Ibrahim told reporters that eight policemen, two security men and two women were killed in the fighting, during which several public buildings were destroyed.
The rebels attacked the town with 50 trucks armed with heavy weapons, some of which were posted outside Hamrat al-Sheikh to seal it off, he said. They outnumbered the security forces to seize the town.
The attack came despite a truce between the Khartoum government and Darfur rebels since April 2004. But the JEM rejects a peace deal signed in the Nigerian capital Abuja in May by Khartoum and the main Darfur rebel group, the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) .
The attack on Hamrat al-Sheikh, a town which lies more than 500 kilometres (300 miles) west of Khartoum and neighbours Darfur, marks one of the worst violations of the truce as well as a widening of the conflict.
The African Union-mediated Darfur peace agreement aims to end more than three years of war in the region that has killed an estimated 300,000 people and displaced 2.4 million others.
The JEM along with two other Darfur rebel groups which refused to sign up to the peace deal formed a new alliance to fight Khartoum last Friday.
Officials from the groups created the National Redemption Front (NRF) after talks in the Eritrean capital and reaffirmed their opposition to the Abuja agreement.
The front is made up of the JEM, a holdout faction of the SLM, and the Sudan Federal Democratic Alliance, according to a "founding declaration" which was released in Asmara.
According to the Khartoum daily Al-Sahafa, the NRF claimed the attack on the town of Hamrat al-Sheikh.
"The parties which have not signed the Abuja agreement wanted to deliver a message to the government they are a force that cannot be ignored and that they are demanding a comprehensive peace," NRF leaders said in the claim.
Al-Sahafa quoted an NSF field commander, Abubakr Hamid, as saying his forces would "withdraw from the town today (Tuesday), or tomorrow in two groups, one heading east towards Khartoum and another north toward the Northern State."
The Front "possesses a strike force that can reach any region in the Sudan," he warned, while insisting the attack was not a violation of the ceasefire agreement which he said "applies only to Darfur."
The escalation came as the AU agreed to extend by three months its Darfur peacekeeping mission, scheduled to wind up at the end of September, to allow more time for Khartoum to accept the force being replaced by a UN deployment.
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