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U.S. diplomat, Sudanese driver killed in shooting in Khartoum; motive unknown
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Jan 1, 2008 - 8:57:21 AM

U.S. diplomat, Sudanese driver killed in shooting in Khartoum; motive unknown

KHARTOUM, Sudan - An American diplomat and his driver were shot to death Tuesday in the Sudanese capital, the U.S. Embassy said, a day after a joint African Union-United Nations force took over peacekeeping in Sudan's Darfur region.

It was not known if the attack had a political motive or was a random crime.

Darfur, far to the west, is engulfed in violence. But the Sudanese capital and its surroundings rarely see political violence or attacks by Islamic militants.

Walter Braunohler, a spokesman at the U.S. Embassy in Khartoum who confirmed the death of the American, said it was "too early to tell" if the attack was al-Qaida or terror related.

The Sudanese state news agency SUNA quoted the Foreign Ministry as saying the incident was "isolated and has no political or ideological connotations" and pledged to bring the culprits to justice.

The Sudan Media Centre, which has close links to the government, cited an unidentified government official as saying the attack was criminal in motive and that there was "no grain of suspicion of an organized terrorist action."

The Sudanese driver was killed immediately and the American, who worked for the U.S. Agency for International Development, died of his injuries within hours, Braunohler said. The embassy did not release the diplomat's name.

The Sudanese Interior Ministry said the American was shot five times in the hand, shoulder and stomach.

The attack occurred around 4 a.m. local time as the car was heading to a western suburb of Sudan's capital, Khartoum.

Crime is fairly high in Khartoum, although much lower than in other east African cities like Nairobi, Kenya.

On Monday, a joint peacekeeping force took over in Darfur - a long-awaited change that is intended to be the strongest effort yet to solve the world's worst humanitarian crisis but which already is struggling.

Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahri have called in the past for "jihad," or holy war, in Sudan if UN peacekeepers deploy in Darfur - most recently in a September video by al-Zawahri.

Bin Laden was based in Sudan until the late 1990s when the government expelled him, but there has been little sign of activity by his group in the country recently.

Last year, a group calling itself al-Qaida's branch in Sudan claimed responsibility for the slaying of a Sudanese editor accused of blasphemy for articles run in his Al-Wifaq newspaper. It was the first time a group in Sudan claimed allegiance to al-Qaida, but Sudanese officials have said the claim was fake and the slaying was not al-Qaida-linked.

At the same time, the Sudanese government often drums up anti-western sentiment in the state media, accusing the West of seeking to re-colonize Sudan using the ethnic conflict in Darfur as a pretext.