Jihad groups prepare to 'aid' Sudan

A coalition of Islamic jihadist groups are working together to aid the Sudanese government in its military campaign against South Sudan, WND has learned.

In Gaza, Hamas and the al-Qaida-allied Popular Resistance Committees held a rare meeting last week to discuss methods of support for the Sudanese Republic, according to informed Arab officials.

The officials said Jihadiya Salafiya, a Gazan jihad group that works under the ideological banner of al-Qaida, already started recruiting fighters to aid the Sudanese Army.

Jihadiya Salafiya is the military wing of the same Salafist group that just endorsed Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, a former leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood, in his run for Egyptian president.

Sudan reportedly has been a key arms-smuggling route for weapons to enter Gaza.

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The move comes as the Islamist president of Sudan, Omar al-Bashir, declared a state of emergency Sunday for cities along the hotly contested border with South Sudan.

Just yesterday, South Sudan accused Sudan of launching another in a series of attacks focusing on a key oil region that falls within the jurisdiction of the new state of South Sudan, which was formed last July.

South Sudan said it was preparing to strike back, in another sign of the festering violence along the frontier that many fear could escalate into an all-out war.

There are religious overtones to the dispute.

Sudan has been the subject of severe sanctions due to its alleged ties with the Egyptian Islamic Jihad and al-Qaida terrorist groups.

When Sudan's Bashir first seized power in a military coup, he suspended political parties and introduced an Islamic legal code on the national level.

Currently, Sudan officially is supposed to be a federal, presidential, representative, democratic republic, but Bashir has been widely accused of running an authoritarian regime.

The landlocked South Sudan became an independent state July 9, 2011.

The South Sudanese primarily practice animism and Christianity.

Last month, following border clashes April 9 between Sudan and South Sudan, a Muslim mob reportedly destroyed a church compound in Sudan, with the congregation's pastor expressing concern about the plight of Christians.

Pastor Yousif Matar Kodi said hundreds of people descended on his Sudan Presbyterian Evangelical Church compound in Khartoum after an Islamic cleric called for the action during Friday night prayers.

"They burned Bibles and torched the school for training clergy on the farm, as well as the residence of the students," he said.

Kodi told reporters three worship halls that served as public churches were also destroyed.

Blaming Islamic extremists for the attack, Kodi continued, "They are the only people who do such things."