From Reuters, January 25, 2011:
Sudan’s army clashed with Darfur rebels for the second time in a week on Tuesday, peacekeepers said, and insurgents said they shot down a helicopter gunship, killing at least three people.
Fighting has disrupted the remote western territory for almost eight years, in the face of a string of failed ceasefires and internationally backed negotiations.
A spokesman from the rebel Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) loyal to Abdel Wahed Mohamed al-Nur said its forces and allied insurgents clashed with the army near the North Darfur town of Thabit on Tuesday morning.
A statement from SLA official Adam Salih Abakr said the rebels, fighting alongside another SLA faction and the insurgent Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), killed a large number of government soldiers.