Sudan clampdown after arrest

President Bashir and Dr Turabi: A bitter rivalry

Security has been tightened in Sudan following the arrest of Islamist leader Hassan al-Turabi, a former close ally of President Omar al-Bashir.

At least 20 of Mr Turabi's Popular National Congress (PNC) supporters have been rounded up since his arrest on Wednesday evening, says an aide.

Armed police have also deployed around the party headquarters as well as the offices of his newspaper, Rai al-Shaab, which was not published on Thursday.

On Tuesday it was revealed that the PNC had signed a memorandum of understanding with the southern rebel group, the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA).

For a decade after President Bashir came to power in a military coup, Hassan al-Turabi was seen as the main ideologue behind his Islamist government.

But Mr Turabi fell out with President Bashir in 1999 and has since sought to present himself as a democracy activist.

New twist

Sudan's Information Minister, Ghazi Salah Eddin, told the BBC that Mr Turabi had been arrested because he was cooperating with what he called a terrorist organisation to fight the state.

He added that at a news conference, Mr Turabi had given details of the proposed cooperation with the rebels and that this had gone further than what was in the document.

The understanding between Mr Turabi and the SPLA, reached in Switzerland earlier this week, took many by surprise.

Mr Turabi had been regarded as a symbol of Sudan's Islamist policies which have been a key factor in the country's long-running civil war.

The document his party signed with the SPLA calls for democracy, a just peace and a federal government.

But given Mr Turabi's past, it is being seen as extraordinary that he and the southern rebels should agree on anything at all.