Britain and America threatened yesterday to impose new sanctions on Khartoum after a United Nations report accused Sudan of disguising its military planes and helicopters as UN aircraft and using them to attack villages in Darfur.

The confidential report says that military aircraft were painted white — a colour usually reserved for the UN — and used to ferry arms to the janjawid militia, for reconnaissance flights and bombing missions.

The 44-page document, prepared by a panel of experts and circulated to UN Security Council members this week, accuses the authorities in Khartoum of flagrant breaches of international law and calls for tougher sanctions.

Last night Tony Blair warned the Sudanese authorities that American and British officials at the UN Security Council would begin consultations on a new resolution against Sudan if it did not stop its violations in the war-torn province. “What is happening is unacceptable. It is appalling,” he said. “The international community will not allow the scandal that is Darfur to continue.”

President Bush said that President Omar al-Bashir had one last chance to comply with existing UN demands that he halt the violence in Darfur, disarm the janjaweed militia and facilitate the deployment of UN and African Union peacekeepers. “The time for promises is over, President Bashir must act,” he said. “If President Bashir does not meet his obligations, the United States will act."

Sanctions could include an arms embargo, monitoring of aircraft on the ground and measures aimed at individuals.

The concerted diplomatic offensive was prompted in part by the leak of the UN report, which covers the period from last August to last month, when it claims both the Sudanese authorities and Darfur rebel groups had ignored ceasefires and UN resolutions.

By far the most serious charges are made against Khartoum, which is alleged to have launched a series of bloody offensives against civilians in Darfur, where 200,000 people have been killed since 2003.

The Government is also accused of shipping arms and fighters into the province, which is subject to an international arms ban. It has further failed to enforce a travel ban or freeze the assets of suspected war criminals.

The report’s most astonishing revelation was the use by the Sudanese armed forces of white-painted military aircraft in Darfur. On March 7 a photograph was taken of an Antonov AN26 aircraft on the military apron of al-Fasher airport, the Darfuri regional capital. Guarded by soldiers and with bombs piled alongside, the plane was painted white and has the initials “UN” stencilled on its upper left wing. Another Sudanese military aircraft was disguised in the same manner. The report said that white Antonovs were used to bombard Darfur villages on at least three occasions in January.

A similar ploy was employed to conceal the identity of three Mi171 military helicopters which were painted white. The report said that from a distance the aircraft could be mistaken for similar helicopters operated by the UN and peacekeepers.

The UN Security Council has imposed an arms blockade on Darfur and any shipments of weapons by the Sudanese authorities must first be reported. But on February 24 a military transport aircraft crash-landed on a flight from Khartoum to el Geneina. Photographs revealed soldiers unloading howitzers and scores of ammunition boxes on the runway.

The report also provides detailed descriptions of four separate offensives undertaken by the Sudanese military or local militias against villages in southern, northern and western Darfur between August and December last year.

On one occasion in December, it says, men armed with rocket-propelled grenades and Kalashnikovs arrived at a village by night in a convoy of more than 60 Land Cruisers.

“They set fire to the houses and killed two people, one of whom was a 105-year-old person who was burned alive. They abducted eight girls, five of whom managed to escape, however, three were raped and sent back home naked. The witnesses mentioned that the girls were sent to al-Fasher for medical treatment, and that reports were filed with the authorities to no avail,” the report said.

Smuggled weapons

— The Sri Lankan Tamil Tigers mounted their first air attack last month. The aircraft were probably smuggled in kit form after the tsunami of 2005, exploiting lax security during the aid effort

— In 1979 hundreds of Islamist gunmen stormed the Grand Mosque in Mecca armed with rifles smuggled inside coffins. They held out for two weeks, trapping nearly 100,000 inside the compound

— In the late 1980s Saddam Hussein planned to build the biggest gun in history. The parts were brought into the country disguised as oil pipes

— As well as smuggling drugs into the USA, Colombian traffickers also need to smuggle money out. Dollars have been found stashed in everything from bowling balls to containers of bull semen

— Fifty mercenaries posing as a charitable drinking society attempted a coup in the Seychelles in 1981. Their cover was blown when a Kalashnikov was found in a bag full of toys that they said were for disabled children

Source: Times archives, The Siege of Mecca (Random House), USA Today, The New York Times

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