Janjaweed, and peace, are elusive in Darfur

By Lydia Polgreen The New York Times

MISTARIHA, Sudan Their camouflage uniforms bear no insignia.

Their machine guns lack the brassy patina of long use. Instead of boots, most wear sandals or flip-flops.

The armed men swarming this mysterious town, usually off limits to foreigners, look almost, but not quite, like soldiers. Their allegiance does not appear to be to any military commander, but to a tall, copper-skinned man in a white robe and turban named Musa Hilal.

Hilal, the sheik who the U.S. State Department and human rights organizations say is an architect and perhaps the key leader of the fearsome Arab militias that have unleashed a torrent of misery in Darfur, laughed softly at the question of who these armed men were.

"They are soldiers," he replied with an easy smile in a rare interview here. "Just regular soldiers."

But Colonel John Bosco Mulisa, the commander of the African Union peacekeeping base about 40 kilometers, or 25 miles, away, said there was little doubt who these men really were.

"They are janjaweed," he said, using the local term for the Arab militias. "This town is their headquarters." Read the full story >>>