MAFLUL, sudan — Flanked by machine guns and foxholes on a hillside near Sudan’s southern border, rebel Gen. Nimeiri Murrat peered through a pair of binoculars one day recently onto the abandoned rooftops of the town of Talodi, 2 miles away, tasting what seems like almost certain victory.
The rebel forces, perhaps 8,000 strong, have flanked the town on three sides and are pushing 2,000 government troops back, forcing them into a final hillside stand that is possibly just days away.
But not quite yet. After 10 minutes in the open, enough to attract an airstrike by Sudanese government planes, Murrat has seen what he needs to.
“It’s time to go,” he yelled and leaped into a truck, racing to a command post nearby, guarded by four tanks the rebels captured from government forces.
The war between the rebels in Sudan’s Nuba Mountains — most of them African Muslims but including Christians and animists — and the Arab Muslim government of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir in Khartoum has raged for decades. Hundreds of thousands have died, and Sudan’s South Kordofan state is a humanitarian wasteland, where aerial bombing by government planes has driven thousands of villagers into the countryside.
When the rainy season begins next month, it will be nearly impossible for fuel and food to reach them.
Lost, however, in those humanitarian worries is a key detail: The rebels appear to be winning and might stand at the edge of a triumph that could have enormous strategic implications.
String of rebel victories
Capturing Talodi would give the rebels, for the first time, a base at one end of an all-weather road that leads to Malaki, a city in South Sudan, the newly independent nation whose rulers have long been allied with the rebels.
With Talodi in their hands, the rebels would be close to opening a year-round supply line from the south, where the military, the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, bears almost the same name as the rebel force, the Sudan People’s Liberation Army-North.
The rebels have failed before and could well again. In October, they tried three times to take the town, but each effort was repulsed. Journalists who were flown into Talodi from Khartoum last week said they saw no sign of the rebels and that Sudanese officials said the closest rebel-held area was 25 miles away — a claim that certainly was untrue six days before, according to the GPS coordinates for Murrat’s command post.
In any case, a string of victories has given the rebels not only turf but thousands of tons of captured supplies, including tanks, heavy trucks, and months of food supplies.
The war infests everything here, blanketing the countryside in fear and revolutionary resolve. Hunger haunts the mountainsides, where women and children cower under boulders and sleep inside caves. Husbands and brothers are absent, many on the front lines.
Fields lie fallow and towns abandoned. Meanwhile, mangoes litter the ground under unharvested trees near the front lines. Few dare trek far during the days’ 115-degree heat, the scorching wind a blow dryer in the face. Traveling at nighttime is a dangerous affair.
That Talodi could soon fall to the rebels is a sign of the rebellion’s new prowess. Previously, the rebels had no heavy weaponry and could fight only as guerrillas. Major towns like Talodi were safe from their grasp.
New terrority in the fight
In January, Sudanese troops attacked the towns of Tess and Buram with the elite Republican Guard and 10 tanks, but they had to flee after the rebels ambushed them in front and behind. In their flight, they left behind tanks for the rebels.
In February, the rebels routed 6,000 Sudanese soldiers from the town of Trogi. Trenches surround the town, where empty tank artillery shells are scattered like afterthoughts. The last time rebels controlled the town: 1994.
The rebels also are pushing northeast into areas surrounding the towns of Rashad and Abassiya, north into the areas around Dalami and Habila, and west, where they surround the town of Laghawa.
For al-Bashir’s government in Khartoum, the push is more than a local threat. Already, the rebels have fought side by side with the Justice and Equality Movement group based in Sudan’s Darfur region, where the long-simmering rebellion is drawing new recruits. The SPLA-North is also fighting a separate insurgency in Sudan’s Blue Nile state, which borders Ethiopia to the east.
The rebel plan is to drain Sudan’s resources on multiple fronts across the country, before collectively marching to the Sudanese capital.
“We can take Kadugli on our own,” said Maj. Gen. Izzat Kuku, the rebel’s third in command, huddled in a secret location to avoid detection from the air. “Then, we will go together to Khartoum.”
