Border battle killed 150 army troops: Sudan rebels

Sudanese rebels said on Tuesday that they killed 150 government soldiers along the disputed border with South Sudan in a battle that prompted Khartoum to threaten retaliation against its newly independent neighbour.

Sudan's military denied the casualty toll and said it had killed a "huge number" of rebels, but gave no figure.

The casualties came during Sunday's "surprise attack" against a government base in the Jau area, said Arnu Ngutulu Lodi, of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N).

Rebels counted the bodies on the ground, he said, and seized three tanks along with hundreds of weapons and vehicles in the joint operation with a small number of fighters from Darfur's Justice and Equality Movement (JEM).

The insurgents, who last year formed a "revolutionary front" aimed at toppling the Khartoum regime, claimed the attack in the contested Jau area -- part of an oil-rich region on the poorly defined border -- as their first combined operation against government forces.

After the Jau attack, SPLM-N rebels moved on Sunday evening into the key location of Taruje, about 20 kilometres north and on Monday retook a government outpost at El-Ahmier, 30 kilometres southeast of the state capital Kadugli, Lodi told AFP.

Rebels had seized the El-Ahmier outpost in mid-January but the army retook it, and now it has changed hands again, he said.

Sawarmi Khaled Saad, the Sudanese army spokesman, denied rebels had taken Taruje or El-Ahmier. He said the only fighting had been around Jau, from which rebels had since withdrawn.

"Now SAF troops are clearing the area," he said.

Access to the state is heavily restricted, making independent verification difficult.