Khartoum - The head of Sudan's powerful National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) vowed Islamic State group jihadists would not be allowed to use the country to cross into Libya, a media source reported on Tuesday.
“Sudan will not be a crossing for Daesh and extremists,” said NISS chief Mohamed Atta al-Mawla Abbas according to the Sudan Media Centre (SMC). Daesh is one of the names used for Islamic State, which is also called IS.
“We will not tolerate any organised or cross-border crime Sudanese territory is used in,” he said.
The SMC, seen as close to the security forces, said he was speaking at the graduation of new members of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a controversial counter-insurgency unit.
There have been reports in Khartoum-based media that young Sudanese have travelled to Libya to fight with radical Islamist groups, with some reported to have been killed.
Last year students from a private university in Khartoum travelled to Turkey, from where they are believed to have joined the IS group in Syria.
Some of the students held western passports.
The security chief also repeated claims from Khartoum that rebels battling government forces in Sudan's western Darfur region have been fighting in Libya.
“For the Libyan state, we want security and stability and peace and we do not want insurgents going to Libya and coming back and sabotaging peace in Darfur,” he told the graduating RSF troops.
RSF forces sent to crush rebels in Darfur and the southern Blue Nile and South Kordofan states have been accused of rights abuses, which the government has denied.
Unlike the regular military, the RSF come under the umbrella of the NISS.
AFP