Arab-led Darfur rebels say are victimized too

By Stephanie Hancock

N'DJAMENA (Reuters) - Arab-led Darfur rebels accuse Sudan's government of fomenting ethnic tensions in the war-torn region as a "divide and rule" tactic and insist the portrayal of Arabs as linked to the feared Janjaweed militia is wrong.

The United Revolutionary Force Front (URFF), a little-known Arab-led group opposed to the Khartoum government, says government troops have increased attacks on its positions in Darfur in recent weeks, including a raid on August 11 in which the group says it captured 12 government soldiers.

"The government of Sudan is trying to separate the Arabs and the Africans, to put them on two sides against each other," URFF Secretary-General Mohammad Ibrahim Mohammad Brima told Reuters in neighboring Chad.

Darfur's war pits local rebel groups drawn largely from African farming tribes against government forces and allied militia known as the Janjaweed, whose mainly Arab members are accused of bloody attacks on villagers that have forced many of Darfur's 2.5 million displaced from their homes.

International experts say 200,000 have been killed in Darfur since 2003, although Khartoum says only 9,000 have died.

"Yes Khartoum has created militias -- but other ethnic groups are involved as well as Arabs ... Arabs are part of Darfur as well, and we are suffering just as the others," Mohammad Brima said.

"We are not beside the militia -- we are against anybody that attacks the people of Darfur ... we are against these people, even if they are Arabs," he said. "The people of Darfur are one nation and they should not be separated."

"READY TO DEFEND OURSELVES"