Khartoum - Sudanese authorities said on Saturday they had found a huge arms cache to be used in a plot to kill government officials and destroy strategic locations in the capital, the Sudanese Media Centre (SMC) said.
Security services said on Friday they had foiled an attempt by elements of Islamist Hassan al-Turabi's opposition Popular Congress (PC) party to kidnap and kill 38 government officials in an attempt to sabotage the government.
The SMC, an agency with close links to the government, showed pictures of an arms cache found in north Khartoum, consisting of 300 rifles, grenades and thousands of rounds of ammunition, which security services said were to be used in the sabotage attempt, the third the PC is accused of involvement in over the past six months.
Turabi was arrested and the party suspended in April after the government accused him of a similar plot and of inciting tribal tensions in the troubled western Darfur region, where a 19-month-old rebellion is exacting huge political pressure on the government.
With 1,5 million people displaced and 200 000 refugees encamped in neighbouring Chad, the United Nations calls Darfur one of the world's worst humanitarian crises. The World Health Organisation said up to 10 000 could be dying in the camps each month, mostly from disease.
Authorities arrested about 70 PC members as well as other activists from Darfur after finding three separate arms caches in and near the capital earlier this month.
But security was normal in the capital on Saturday and some analysts said they doubted there was another attempt to topple the government.
"They are scared though," said one analyst, who declined to be named.
A UN Security Council resolution threatens possible sanctions on Sudan if it fails to stop the violence in Darfur, which the United States says is genocide. The resolution calls for an inquiry to establish whether genocide has occurred in the remote west of African's largest country.
The top US envoy to Sudan, Charles Snyder, has said Sudan, which has battled more than two decades of civil war in its south, had no choice but to sign a southern peace agreement currently being negotiated in the Kenyan city of Naivasha, which envisages a decentralisation of power and a more federal system of government.
Otherwise Sudan could become like Somalia, which has no central government, he said.