Free Republic

The Bush administration has forged a close intelligence partnership with the Islamic regime that once welcomed Osama bin Laden here, even though Sudan continues to come under harsh U.S. and international criticism for human rights violations. The Sudanese government, an unlikely ally in the U.S. fight against terror, remains on the most recent U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism. At the same time, however, it has been providing access to terrorism suspects and sharing intelligence data with the United States. Last week, the CIA sent an executive jet here to ferry the chief of Sudan's intelligence agency to Washington...

Washington, May 1. (Guardian News Service): Sudan's Islamist regime, once shunned by Washington for providing a haven for Osama bin Laden as well as for human rights abuses during decades of civil war, has become an ally in the Bush administration's "war on terror". Only months after the then US secretary of state, Colin Powell, accused Khartoum of genocide in Darfur, Sudan has become a crucial intelligence asset to the CIA. In the Middle East and Africa, Sudan's agents have penetrated networks that would not normally be accessible to America, one former US intelligence official told the Guardian. Some of...