Date:13/06/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/06/13/stories/2007061303401400.htm

International

CIA recruits Sudanese to infiltrate jihadi groups

Ewen MacAskill

London: The CIA, faced with the impossibility of infiltrating white Americans into radical groups in West Asia, is recruiting Arab-speaking Sudanese citizens, in spite of sanctions against the country over the killings in Darfur, it emerged on Monday.

Sudanese recruits have been providing information about individuals passing through Sudan to Somalia and elsewhere in the Horn of Africa and Iraq. The Sudanese Government is reported to have detained suspects at the request of the U.S.

Partner in war on terror

The U.S. State Department issued a report describing Sudan as a ``strong partner in the war on terror''. A State Department official said the Sudanese had done things that had saved lives but acknowledged there was a contradiction: ``The bottom line is that they are bombing their people ... Dealing with Sudan, it seems like they are always playing both ends against the middle.''

A former high-ranking official, quoted in the Los Angeles Times, acknowledged the importance of the intelligence: ``If you've got jihadists travelling via Sudan to get into Iraq, there's a pattern there in and of itself that would not raise suspicion. It creates an opportunity to send Sudanese into that pipeline.''

A U.S. official still in post told the paper: ``Intelligence cooperation takes place for a whole lot of reasons. It's not always between people who love each other deeply.''

U.S. intelligence agencies do deals with all sorts of governments in West Asia and Central Asia, not only for intelligence-gathering but for secret detention centres and as fuelling stops in rendition casesAnother ex-CIA official said: ``There's not much that blond-haired, blue-eyed case officers from the United States can do in the entire Middle East, and there's nothing they can do in Iraq. Sudanese can go places we don't go. They're Arabs. They can wander around.''

But relations have been soured by Darfur, a high-profile issue in the U.S., with campaigners calling for sanctions against Khartoum.

Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the National Security Council, said he did not believe sanctions would ruin intelligence cooperation. —© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2007