Sudan rebel attacks downplayed

Rebels have been fighting for autonomy since 1983

The Sudanese army has dismissed as lies rebel reports of widepread casualties in an attack in an oil-rich area in the south.

Sudan's largest rebel group, Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), said it killed more than 400 government troops and damaged the facilities of several oil companies in an attack on Bentiu, the capital of the Unity province, some 800km (500 miles) south of Khartoum.

But acting armed forces spokesman General Farouq Hassan Mohamed Nour said government troops in the area were in "full control of the situation".

"Life is going on normally with the inhabitants feeling safe and secure," he said in comments published in a daily newspaper.

In a statement sent to several news agencies, the SPLA said that 429 government troops had been killed and some 105 fighters with pro-Khartoum militias had switched sides in fighting in the past 10 days.

The rebels said they also attacked the town of Rabkona and an army garrison at Tonak.

War for oil

The SPLA has been fighting an 18-year-war demanding more freedom in the south for the mainly animist and Christian population, from the mostly Muslim, Arabic-speaking north.

In 1999, the government began pumping oil in that area, turning the war for autonomy into a war for oil, according to a United Nations report released this month.

Human rights groups and other critics of Sudan's government say it building up its military using the oil revenues, estimated at $500 million last year, and persecuting non-Muslims.

SPLA spokesman Yasser Arman warned oil companies operating in southern Sudan to leave the area, saying that oil-production areas were "legitimate military targets."

The oilfield in Unity is run by the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company (GNPOC), of which 5% is owned by Sudan's state Sudapec, 25% by Canada's Talisman Energy Co TLM.TO, 30% by Indonesia's state oil company Petronas, and 40% by China's state CNPC.

Sudan produces about 205,000 barrels of oil per day and exports 145,000 of them. The war has cost up to two million lives.