Sudan's Darfur rebels take their battles online - emailing and using blogs to compete with rivals

Rebel leaders in Sudan are using blogs to communicate with each other as part of an ongoing fued as to who actually controls the main rebel group in the country, writes The Blog Herald in response to an article by Emily Wax, Washington Post, Jan 14 - excerpt:

The leaders of the main rebel movement in Sudan's Darfur region were once brothers in arms. But last year, the two powerful men had a falling out, and each proclaimed he was the rightful president of the Sudanese Liberation Army. Things got ugly.

But not a single shot was fired. Instead, the feuding insurgents battled as bloggers over the Internet.

"I got his e-mails and read those bitter diaries," said Mohamed al-Nur, a founder of the rebel group, at a conference held here late last year by the United States to try to bring the two sides together.

"That's the only place we hear from you - on that Internet!" hooted Saif Haroun, a spokesman for Minni Arko Minnawi, the newly proclaimed leader. "You run your rebellion from a computer?"