The African Union said on Tuesday it had established some clear leads in its investigation into the attack, but was waiting for more firm evidence before publishing the findings.
"Investigations are under way but they are not complete," said spokesman Noureddine Mezni. He said 10 soldiers wounded in the attack were being treated in Khartoum.
Officials at the African Union's headquarters in Addis Ababa said no African countries were planning to pull troops out of Darfur as a result of the attack, which killed seven Nigerians and one soldier each from Senegal, Mali and Botswana.
Nigerian presidential spokesman Olusegun Adeniyi said Nigeria's top military commander and army chief would visit Darfur to assess the situation and make arrangements for the bodies of the dead Nigerians to be repatriated.
A joint U.N.-AU peacekeeping force with 26,000 police and soldiers is due to deploy in Darfur next year to help the under-funded and ill-equipped 7,000-strong AU force in the remote region.
Experts estimate 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million have been driven from their homes since mostly non-Arab rebels took up arms in early 2003 accusing the government of neglect. Khartoum disputes the figures.
ELDERS IN DARFUR
A delegation of statesmen, including former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, arrived in El-Fasher in Darfur on Tuesday to urge peace in the region ahead of talks mediated by the United Nations and AU in Libya on Oct. 27.
At a meeting with officials of South Sudan in Juba on Tuesday, the former rebels who negotiated their own peace deal with the government in Khartoum told the elders the fractured rebels in Darfur presented one of the biggest threat to the peace process in western Sudan.
South Sudan President Salva Kiir said without a unified position and single delegation to meet the government at the peace table in Libya, no inclusive deal would be reached.
But he blamed Sudan's ruling National Congress Party for dividing the rebels.
"The policy of divide and rule has been tried in Darfur. The NCP want to break them up into small pieces ... they divide those who are still strong," he added.
Reports of unrest have continued to emerge from the region. The U.N. reported three armed raiders shot and killed a man on Monday while trying to hijack an aid agency's vehicle in the West Darfur town of El Geneina.
