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reuters

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - The Sudanese army said it had attacked a Darfur rebel stronghold to open roads in the central Jabel Marra region and killed 25 rebels, the latest step in an escalation of fighting in western Sudan.



U.N. humanitarian officials said some 13,000 new refugees had arrived this month at Zam Zam camp in North Darfur from areas which peacekeepers said had witnessed heavy clashes and government bombardment.

President Omar Hassan al-Bashir has been indicted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and genocide during Darfur's eight-year insurgency, but denies the charges.

"The attack came in the context of armed forces' operations to open roads and secure villages at eastern Jabel Marra from ... rebels," army spokesman Al-Sawarmi Khaled said in a statement on the state news agency SUNA late on Thursday.

He said the army had killed 25 rebel fighters and lost two of its own soldiers.

The Darfur rebel Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) led by Abdel Wahed Mohamed el-Nur on Friday confirmed the attack to Reuters, but said the SLA had lost only six fighters and most of those killed were civilians.

"They came with tanks and planes and they attacked all the villages in the area -- 13 villages are deserted and eight of those burned," said senior SLA commander Ibrahim el-Helu.

Helu said the only international aid agency working in the area was the French agency Medecins du Monde, which the government expelled from South Darfur state earlier this month.

"They were the only ones witnessing the crimes and they were the only ones working to help those in our rebel-controlled areas," he said, adding that was why the government expelled them.