Sudan effort in jeopardy

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa – Senegal threatened Monday to withdraw its more than 500 troops from Darfur, moving the African Union’s beleaguered peacekeeping mission closer to collapse after a spectacular militia attack over the weekend left 10 A.U. soldiers dead and dozens more missing or wounded.

The attack, the deadliest since A.U. forces arrived in the Sudanese region three years ago, highlighted the vulnerability of a 7,000-person force that is outgunned and ill-equipped to quell a conflict that has killed at least 200,000 and grown steadily more complex.

It also injected a new and unsettling element into efforts to gradually replace the A.U. force with a much larger one to be led by the United Nations but staffed largely by troops from African nations. That transition is scheduled to begin soon and take many months.

Senegal, with the third-largest number of troops in Darfur now, was expected to be a key player in any future force. But Senagalese President Abdoulaye Wade said all of his nation’s military personnel will come home if an investigation reveals that the African Union lacked appropriate firepower to repel the attack.

Numerous news reports have said that A.U. troops ran out of ammunition early in the fight. Killed were seven soldiers from Nigeria, one from Mali, one from Botswana and one from Senegal, news reports said.

The White House, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and other officials from around the world condemned the attack and demanded justice, although it was not immediately clear which of the armed groups operating in Darfur was responsible. The region has at least a dozen militia groups, as the insurrection that began with an attack on government forces in 2003 has repeatedly splintered.