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AFP
Sudanese rebels said Tuesday they killed 150 government soldiers along the disputed border with South Sudan in a battle that prompted Khartoum to threaten retaliation against the newly independent state.

Sudan's military denied the casualty toll and said it had killed a "huge number" of rebels, but gave no figure.

The casualties came during Sunday's "surprise attack" along the disputed border with South Sudan against a government base in the Jau area, said Arnu Ngutulu Lodi, of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N).

Rebels counted the bodies on the ground, he said, and seized three tanks along with hundreds of weapons and vehicles in the joint operation with a small number of fighters from Darfur's Justice and Equality Movement (JEM).

The insurgents, who last year formed a "revolutionary front" aimed at toppling the Khartoum regime, claimed the attack in the contested Jau area -- part of an oil-rich region on the poorly defined border -- as their first combined operation against government forces.

But an analyst said the attack could not have occurred without direct involvement by South Sudan's army.

The fighting must be seen as part of the "bargaining process" between two nations engaged in a major dispute over oil fees and other issues related to the South's separation, argued Magdi El Gizouli, a fellow at the Rift Valley Institute.

"I think the rebel force is now just a pawn in a bigger process," he said.

South Sudan separated in July -- taking with it about three-quarters of Sudan's oil production -- after an overwhelming vote for independence that followed more than two decades of war.

Last month Juba shut down the flow of oil after accusing Khartoum of stealing the crude which runs through pipelines in the north to Sudan's Red Sea port.

The South has no other way to export its oil but the two sides have failed to agree on how much it should pay to use the infrastructure.

After the Jau attack, SPLM-N rebels said they moved further north to Taruje, and on Monday retook a government outpost at El-Ahmier, 30 kilometres (19 miles) southeast of the state capital Kadugli, Lodi told AFP.

"There was shelling yesterday from Kadugli," he added.

Sawarmi Khaled Saad, the Sudanese army spokesman, denied rebels had taken Taruje or El-Ahmier. He said the only fighting had been around Jau, from which rebels had since withdrawn.

"Now SAF troops are clearing the area," he said.

Access to the state is heavily restricted, making independent verification difficult.

Khartoum threatened retaliation after accusing South Sudan of backing the rebel attack on the Jau area, six kilometres (four miles) inside the border, in violation of a memorandum on non-aggression and cooperation signed this month.

It said rebels accompanied by officers from South Sudan's army launched a "direct attack", but Juba denied supporting opposition groups in Sudan.

"Jau is in the territory of South Sudan," Minister of Information Barnaba Marial Benjamin told reporters on Tuesday.

"We have not crossed our border."

Ethnic minority insurgents in the SPLM-N fought alongside the former rebels now ruling the South.

Fighting in South Kordofan broke out in June, followed in September by a similar conflict in nearby Blue Nile state, as Khartoum moved to assert its authority in the wake of southern secession.

Gizouli said that it seems government troops "got a beating" at Jau but their opponents will not be able to hold the area for long, and casualty figures given by the rebels are almost certainly inflated.

"I'm worried that more civilians were killed in this than military," he said.

More than 360,000 people have been internally displaced or severely affected by fighting in the two Sudanese border states, the United Nations says.

With Sudan severely restricting the work of foreign relief agencies in the war zone, international concern is mounting over malnutrition and food shortages in the area.

On Monday a US congressman pleaded for action and accused the Khartoum government of new "ethnic cleansing".