The militia stand accused of widespread atrocities and the International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants for a junior cabinet minister and an allied militia leader accused of war crimes. Khartoum refuses to hand them over.
U.N. URGES RESTRAINT
The Sudanese army said it had attacked the area to move JEM out because the insurgents had been ambushing their forces. But it denied killing any civilians.
"The armed forces attacked the areas where the rebels are and they have rid the areas of them totally," a spokesman said.
JEM's Ashr said the rebels had not stationed forces inside the towns since capturing them late last year.
"When we attacked and took Suleia, we attacked the army there but not one civilian was killed," he said.
Two other rebel groups also said the nearby Chad-Sudan border area of Jabel Moun had been bombed.
Commander of the joint U.N.-African Union peacekeeping mission in Darfur (UNAMID), Martin Luther Agwai, said he was very concerned about the government attack, urging all sides to show restraint.
"In addition to the loss of life and damage to property, there is the potential for displacement of large numbers of villagers, compounding an already critical humanitarian situation," he said in a statement.
The UNAMID force, still awaiting an agreement from Khartoum on its operational rules due to be signed on Saturday says it has only 9,000 of its required 26,000 troops and police.
It also lacks attack and transport helicopters. Ethiopia said on Thursday it would provide five of the required 24.
Rights group Amnesty International said the government attack was a "major test" for the UNAMID mission which began operations on December 31 and called on it to protect the civilians in the area.
"The Security Council ... should call on the government of Sudan to comply with international humanitarian law and ensure that civilians are protected at all times and call on JEM not to endanger civilians by stationing armed men within civilian areas," Tawanda Hondora, Amnesty's deputy Africa director, said in a statement on Friday.
"It looks like a rather large-scale operation," Jan Eliasson, U.N. special envoy to Darfur, said in New York of the latest offensive.
Witnesses said the attacks were similar to those in the early days of the Darfur conflict in 2003, when Khartoum mobilised militias to quell mostly non-Arab rebels who took up arms in western Sudan, accusing the government of neglect.
