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Sudan Tightens Vise On Turabi And Forms New Government
KHARTOUM, Feb 23 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir continued waging a crackdown Friday against his former ally, Islamist Hassan al-Turabi, moving the dissident leader to an undisclosed location and arresting more of Turabi's supporters.
Turabi, 69, was flown by the government to a secret location from Khartoum's Cooper Prison where he had been jailed since Wednesday, said a source from Turabi's Popular National Congress (PNC) party.
The source added around 95 PNC officials have been arrested in Khartoum and the provinces while another 19 PNC members are still being hunted by the authorities.
Turabi's wife, Wisal al-Mahdi, also said her husband had been flown out of the capital and that she was worried.
No government or ruling party official was available to comment.
She said around 400 of Turabi's followers had gathered at her home on Thursday night to be briefed on a deal the PNC signed Monday with south Sudanese opposition who have waged a 17-year civil war against Khartoum.
Mahdi, who is also a member of the PNC's consultative council, said PNC Information Secretary Mohamed al-Amin Khalifa was among those who have been detained by the government's security forces.
Turabi provoked Beshir's wrath when the PNC signed a memorandum of understanding in Switzerland with the Southern People's Liberation Army (SPLA), an opposition group of southern Sudanese Christians and animists at war with Sudan's Muslim-Arab north since 1983. The pact called for peaceful resistance against Beshir.
Khalifa delivered a sermon at Friday midday prayer services at Khartoum University mosque defending the deal with the SPLA, a witness said.
Mahdi said Khalifa was taken into custody immediately after the prayers.
During his sermon, while security surrounded the mosque, Khalifa said the deal was aimed at halting the civil war that the SPLA has been waging against successive governments for 17 years in addition to building trust between northerners and southerners.
"We are doing this for the sake of Islam rather than power," he said as quoted by the witness.
Beshir has called the pact "a violation of the law" and warned the government would "not tolerate such acts."
Turabi, who helped Beshir seize power in a 1989 bloodless military coup, crossed his onetime ally when, as parliamentary speaker in 1999, he sponsored legislation to curb presidential powers.
In response, Beshir dissolved parliament, purging Turabi from power and forcing him into the opposition.
Beshir, meanwhile, formed a new 31-member government mostly made up of his ruling National Congress party, Sudanese state television reported late Thursday.
Sixteen members of the preceding 25-strong administration will stay on, joined by other backers of Beshir, who seized power in the 1989 coup and who was given a five-year mandate in controversial elections last December which the opposition boycotted.
Eight members of the outgoing cabinet retain their posts, including the key portfolios of defense, foreign affairs, justice and information and culture.
Former presidential affairs minister Abdel Rahim Mohamed Hussein takes over the interior ministry.
The new cabinet also includes six ministers from the country's troubled south.
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