Sudan’s Seizure of Abyei Won’t Spark New War, Ex-U.S. Envoy Says

Sudan’s seizure of the disputed Abyei region probably won’t spark a new civil war with the south and was prompted by President Umar al-Bashir’s fears of a military coup, analysts such as Andrew Natsios, George W. Bush’s former envoy to Sudan, said.

“It is clear they are very worried about a coup,” Natsios, who is a professor at Georgetown University, said yesterday in telephone interview from Washington. “They want the guns of their own military pointing to somewhere else besides Khartoum.”