By Moyiga Nduru
NAIROBI, Jan 6 1997 (IPS)

Heavy fighting is underway along Sudan’s border with Eritrea between government troops and rebel forces bent on toppling the government of Lt-Gen Omar Hassan al Bashir.

It is the first serious attempt by the rebels, who have grouped under the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) forces, to use Eritrea as a launching pad to fight the Islamic regime in Sudan.

The fighting erupted last week after the NDA forces ambushed a government army convoy at Kotonep area near Kassala, a town on the border with Eritrea.

During the fighting, NDA forces captured five vehicles and destroyed one helicopter, according to its commander Col. John Garang.

Garang is the leader of the southern-based Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) whose soldiers along with that of six exiled northern opposition groups make up the NDA contigency.

The Alliance includes forces from the Umma Party(UP), the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), the Beja Congress, the New Sudan Brigade, the Sudan Federal Party and the Legitimate Command.

In Khartoum, Dr Hassan al Turabi, Speaker of the Sudanese Parliament, this week minimised the new threat from the eastern frontier. “The frontier is too remote to pose any real threat to the Sudan,” he told the international media.

The “skirmishes” at the border would be handled by the local militias there, al Turabi said.

Al Turabi, who is widely regarded as the de facto leader of Sudan, said the rebels “are now mobilising forces, partly southern, partly eastern and others” to fight the Khartoum government.

Since its independence from Britain in 1956, Sudan has been ruled by the country’s minority Arab Muslims, who control commerce, politics and the 118,500-strong army.

The flight of the UP leader, Sadiq al Mahdi, to join the “fragile” alliance in the Eritrean capital of Asmara in December was seen by political analysts as a move to give more strength to the NDA.

But Sudanese leader al Bashir does not believe that al Mahdi’s move will change the position of the NDA forces on the ground.

Al Mahdi, a former prime minister who was toppled by al Bashir in 1989, said his expedition to Eritrea was aimed at strenghtening the alliance “politically and diplomatically”.

The former premier, who had been under house arrest in Khartoum since 1989, travelled to Cairo, Egypt this week as part of a diplomatic effort to strenghthen the efforts of the exiled Sudanese opposition.

Al Turabi warned that both Eritrea and Ethiopia should refrain from assisting the Sudanese opposition movement. “Both are vulnerable,” he said. “They have hundreds of thousands of refugees in Sudan”. He did not elaborate. Together, Eritrea and Ethiopia have over 600,000 refugees in Sudan.

Last year Eritrean leader, Isaiah Afewerki, accused Khartoum of supporting Eritrea’s Islamic militants with the aim to destablise the country, whose population is split 50/50 between Christians and Moslems.

NDA forces commander, Col Garang, has denied Khartoum’s claims that his forces are operating from Eritrea. “We are not based in Eritrea. We are deep inside the Sudan. We occupy an area of 8,000 square kilometres,” he said.

Col Garang said the Sudanese government had despatched two brigades (consisting of some 1,400 men) to reinforce besieged garrison towns on the border with Ethiopia. “They will not make it. We shall destroy both of them,” he warned.

He said government troops in the fighting zone had run out of ammunition. “They are in a dire situation,” he said.

This is the first time that the SPLA has joined hands with other rebel groups in the north to fight a common enemy in Khartoum.

The SPLA, populated by the mainly Christian Africans in the south, had been spurned by northerners who regarded it as a regional movement.

But now things are changing. “Our forces are there to stay,” Garang said.

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