Sudan doubles bounty on Darfur rebel leader to $246-million after weekend attack
KHARTOUM, Sudan - The Sudanese government is reportedly doubling its bounty on the country's most wanted insurgent leader.
The move, reported by Sudanese state TV, comes in the wake of last weekend's surprise attack by Darfur rebels on the capital of Khartoum. State TV says the government is now offering up to 500 million Sudanese pounds - the equivalent of $246 million - for the capture of Khalil Ibrahim.
The bounty on Ibrahim, who heads Darfur's powerful Justice and Equality Movement, is about 10 times the bounty the United States has put on Osama bin Laden.
Ibrahim's followers reached the outskirts of Khartoum on Saturday, after racing across the vast arid terrain of central Sudan with little obstruction to make it to the capital's doorstep.
The attack shocked the government, which is now conducting a full scale manhunt for Ibrahim and cracking down on other opposition figures.
State TV says Sudanese security forces claim to have intercepted a message exchange between Ibrahim and Chadian authorities in which the rebel leader allegedly asks Chad to send him a getaway helicopter. It says Ibrahim is now believed to be in northwest Darfur.
The TV report gave no further details about the bounty. Sudan has benefited from spike in oil prices, but it's unclear where authorities would get such a large sum to pay a reward.
On Sunday, the state TV for the first time broadcast a photo of the JEM leader, asking citizens to call a special hotline if they saw Ibrahim.
Ibrahim told The Associated Press on Monday that he vowed to keep up his offensive against the Sudanese government, saying he can exhaust the military by fighting it all across Africa's largest country. Ibrahim said he was speaking while on the run in the capital's twin city of Omdurman, and that he was allegedly "not safe" but still with his troops.
Saturday's attack was the closest that Darfur's rebels have ever got to the seat of the government. Ibrahim's movement has emerged as the most effective rebel group in Darfur, where ethnic Africans took up arms against the Arab-dominated government in 2003 to fight discrimination.
More than 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million have been displaced in the five years of fighting.
Unlike other Darfur rebel movements, JEM succeeded in expanding its operations out of the wartorn region into the central province of Kordofan, next to the capital.
Ibrahim's close family ties with the powerful Chad-based Zaghwa tribe has bolstered his ranks and military capabilities, especially as relations have declined between Sudan and its western neighbour.
Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir has accused Chad of being behind the weekend attack and warned that his government reserved the right to retaliate.
Chad's government, meanwhile, announced late Monday that its border with Sudan was closed. The almost 1,000-kilometre border runs through some of the most inhospitable and remote countryside in the world and armed groups have long crossed it with impunity.
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