U.S. Diplomat Killed in Sudan Shooting

By Ellen Knickmeyer
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, January 1, 2008; 11:17 AM
LINK

CAIRO, Jan. 1 -- Gunmen opened fire on a car carrying a U.S. diplomat in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum early Monday, fatally wounding the American official and his Sudanese driver, the U.S. Embassy there said.

U.S. authorities declined to immediately identify the American or comment on possible motives for the attack. The killings came a day after a U.N.-African Union force took over peacekeeping in the Sudanese region of Darfur, raising tensions in Sudan's capital over what some Sudanese see as outside interference in Darfur.

The slain American was an official with the U.S. Agency for International Development, according to Walter Braunohler, a U.S. Embassy spokesman in Khartoum.

The American and his Sudanese driver were traveling in a suburb of Khartoum early Monday at the time of the attack. The driver, 40, died during the attack or soon after. The American died Monday afternoon while receiving medical treatment in Khartoum, Braunohler said.


Braunohler said he did not know the number of gunmen involved or whether the victims had been robbed. Citing security, he refused to say whether the embassy had received increased threats before the shootings or assumed a heightened state of alert after the shootings.

Sudan's Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the killings occurred at about 4 a.m.

Alfred Taban, editor of the independent Khartoum Monitor newspaper, said the U.S. diplomat was returning home after a New Year's Eve party hosted by the British Embassy. Gunmen opened fire near the diplomat's house, Taban said.

Khartoum is not particularly known for violent crime.

On Sunday, the United Nations joined the African Union in assuming peacekeeping responsibilities for Darfur. The new hybrid force incorporated troops who were serving with the African Union mission.

The United States had supported sending U.N. peacekeepers to Darfur, where Arab tribal militias allegedly allied to the Sudanese government are accused in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of African villagers during the past five years.

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir long resisted U.N. deployment in Darfur, and he threatened to wage "jihad" against any U.N. peacekeeping force that set foot there. But this summer he agreed to the operation.

The official start of the U.N.-African Union mission on Monday marked the greatest international involvement yet in the Darfur crisis.

"There are people who are very close to the government who are really not happy with this U.N. thing," Taban said.