Adam Mussa Madibbu, an Umma political department member who is close to party leader Sadeq Al-Mahdi, was summoned Wednesday by the security services in Khartoum who then detained him for “two or three days,” his son Madibbu Adam Madibbu told AFP. The reasons for the arrest were not made clear, he added.

However, the younger Madibbu said his father told him the arrest may be linked to his comments at a recent meeting of various political parties from the Darfur region organized by ruling National Congress party officials.

“My father said he had expressed his opinion about finding a solution to the Darfur problem, arguing that the sons of Darfur should find such a solution,” said the younger Madibbu. An Umma Party official who asked not to be named agreed the elder Madibbu may have run into trouble for expressing his opinion at the meeting. The elder Madibbu, an architect, served as transport minister during a multiparty democratic government set up under prime minister Sadeq Al-Mahdi, who was overthrown in 1989.

A group calling itself the Sudan Liberation Army Movement has claimed a number of attacks in the Darfur region since it surfaced for the first time in February. But the government has refused to acknowledge any political motivation for unrest in the states of North, South and West Darfur, blaming it instead on “armed criminal gangs and outlaws,” who it says are aided by tribes from neighboring Chad.

Meanwhile, Sudan Liberation Movement rebels killed 500 Sudanese government troops and took 300 of them prisoner during fighting Thursday in western Sudan’s North Darfur State, a rebel leader said. “We totally destroyed an infantry battalion moving in the area and we caused 500 deaths and took 300 prisoners during an ambush Thursday north of the city of Kutum,” SLM secretary-general Mani Arkoi Minawi told AFP.

There was no immediate comment from the Sudanese government authorities and no way to independently verify the claim. The SLM forces destroyed seven four-wheel drive vehicles and three trucks, Minawi added.

“Sudanese Minister of Education Ahmed Babikir Nahar contacted us two days ago to communicate to us the government’s will to negotiate,” Minawi said.

Sudanese authorities have also arrested a total of 18 foreigners and a Sudanese national during a raid on a military training camp in central Sudan, a senior regional official was Thursday reported as saying. West Kordofan state authorities in the raid seized eight automatic rifles, a satellite telephone, sword, compass, religious books, three four-wheel drive vehicles, US banknotes as well as Saudi riyals, Akhbar Al-Yom reported.