Rebel leader Ali Karbino killed in North Darfur

Ali Karbino, field commander of the Liberation Movement for Justice, Sudan (LMJ-Sudan), was killed in a battle in Kutum locality, North Darfur, on Friday. Rebel leader Ali Karbino and 12 other LMJ leaders were killed in a battle with the paramilitary Border Guards in the area of El Guba, north of Kutum town, North Darfur governor Osman Yousif Kibir announced on Saturday evening. A number of rebels were captured, as well as 31 vehicles, “30 of them in good condition”. Sudan Armed Forces’ commander Col. El Nur Ahmed Adam told the press on Saturday that apart from killing Karbino and 12 of his aides, the regular troops captured 15 rebels, “including foreign fighters”, during the battle on Friday. He said that his troops seized 30 vehicles, and a large quantity of munitions. They also destroyed a number of vehicles. The Colonel noted that Karbino has been one of the influential rebel leaders since the insurgency broke out in Darfur in 2003. In support of the people Taher Hajar, the leader of LMJ-Sudan, told Radio Dabanga on Sunday that his combatants killed 140 army and militia troops in the battle at El Guba. “We seized 31 Land Cruisers loaded with weapons and munitions, and two lorries filled with supplies. 13 military vehicles were destroyed.” Hajar reported that the rebels sustained a number of losses, among them Gen. Ali Abdallah Karbino. He explained that his combatants had attacked the army and militia troops in Kutum locality “in response to the widespread assaults on civilians, the rapes of women, the armed robberies, the hijacking of commercial vehicles, closure of the El Fasher-Kutum road, and the imposition of fees by the militia troops”. Field commander Ali Abdallah Karbino defected from the Liberation and Justice Movement (LJM), led by Tijani Sese, before the latter signed the Doha Document for Peace in Darfur in 2011. Karbino led his faction for two years, after which the movement elected Taher Hajar as their formal leader, while he himself continued to command his troops in the field.In cooperation with the Sudan Liberation Movement, led by Minni Minawi, his forces launched several attacks at army garrisons in Darfur in the end of last year, and early 2014. Karbino is the second rebel leader to be slain, after Khalil Ibrahim, former leader of the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), who was killed in 2011.File photo: Ali KarbinoRelated:Villagers in North Darfur’s Tawila repel militia attacks (14 May 2014)Rebels ‘attack military garrison in South Darfur’ (13 January 2014)