Sudan Rebel Leader: Troops In Khartoum; Would Expel China Oil Cos

LONDON -(Dow Jones)- Sudanese rebels have entered the capital Khartoum and would replace Chinese oil companies with Western ones if they were to overthrow the current government, a rebel leader said Saturday.

The threat is bad news for China, which has become the largest buyer of crude and foreign investor in the Sudanese oil industry as it tries to fill its oil needs resulting from its fast economic growth.


But China’s role in Sudan has also come under criticism from Sudan’s opposition, which claims it sells weapons used in a deadly conflict in the Western province of Darfur.

Speaking to Dow Jones Newswires in a telephone interview, Tahir Elfaki, head of the internal Parliament for the rebel Justice and Equality Movement, or JEM, said the group’s troops were now in the western and northern parts of Khartoum and “we hope to remove (the current regime) soon.”

Dow Jones