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Sudan doesn't want U.N. force in Darfur

By TIMES WIRES
Published September 1, 2006

UNITED NATIONS - The Security Council passed a resolution Thursday authorizing the creation of a U.N. peacekeeping force for the ravaged Darfur region of Sudan, but the resolution calls for the consent of the Sudanese government before troops can be deployed.

Sudanese officials immediately rejected the resolution. A senior adviser to President Omar al-Bashir told Al-Jazeera television that the resolution was illegal and violated the peace accord signed by the government and one of the rebel factions.

But State Department officials were quick to say the resolution did not explicitly require Sudan's consent. "This resolution invites Sudanese consent," Kristen Silverberg, assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs, said at a briefing in Washington after the vote. "Nothing requires Sudanese consent."

The proposed U.N. force is to include a military force of up to 17,300 members and a civilian police force of 3,300. It would replace or absorb the 7,000-member African Union force in Darfur, which has been hamstrung by financial and logistical problems and has failed to halt the slide into violence that President Bush has called genocide.

Since the peace agreement was signed in early May between the government and one of the main rebel factions fighting for greater autonomy and wealth for the region, Darfur has fallen deeper into chaos, with rebel groups splintering and forming new alliances. The government has proposed using its own troops instead of a U.N. force to quell the rebellion.

Afghan troops fight off Taliban, killing two

KABUL, Afghanistan - Taliban militants attacked a southern town Thursday in Afghanistan, sparking intense fighting with government troops that left two insurgents dead, the defense ministry said.

A NATO airstrike pushed back the militants, who used mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and heavy machine guns in the attack on Naw Zad, in volatile Helmand province, said Defense Ministry spokesman Gen. Zahir Azimi. He said the fighting between the Taliban and Afghan army troops was "intense."

A Dutch F-16 fighter jet crashed in the Ghazni province in central Afghanistan, killing the pilot, military officials said. Hostile fire was ruled out because it was flying too high to have been shot down. The 29-year-old pilot, the only person on board, was found dead at the crash site.

The Netherlands is a key contributor to a multinational force in charge of security operations in volatile southern Afghanistan.

In Zabul province, a suicide attacker plowed his explosives-filled car into a police convoy traveling on the main road, wounding three officers, said Jailan Khan, provincial police chief.

A purported Taliban regional commander, Mullah Nazir, claimed responsibility for the blast. His claim could not be independently verified.

NATO aircraft dropped six bombs on two Taliban positions in Helmand's Musa Qala district on Wednesday, but there were no reports of insurgent casualties, said Maj. Quentin Innis, a spokesman for the NATO-led force.

At least 30 dead after boat capsizes in India

PATNA, India - At least 30 people drowned Thursday when a crowded boat capsized in the rain-swollen Ganges River in the eastern Indian state of Bihar, the state's top elected official said.

At least 50 people were in the boat when it overturned in the fast-moving river near Malsalami, a northern Patna suburb, said Nitish Kumar, chief minister of Bihar. About 20 people, nearly all men, swam to safety.

Villagers and navy divers dragged nets in parts of the river, but failed to find any bodies.

[Last modified September 1, 2006, 01:38:04]