Sudan's Unbowed, Unbroken Inner Circle

Without warning, rebels attacked the El Fasher airport and several military posts with a fury that shocked Khartoum. At the time, Taha was in Kenya, engrossed in the final weeks of peace negotiations with the southern rebels. But with Bashir's army weakened and Taha in charge of national security, the vice president quickly assumed a key role, according to a State Department report.

In an interview recently, Taha, a slim man who wears crisp safari suits and loafers, said he began receiving desperate phone calls from top officials, including Bashir, about how to combat the insurgency erupting in Darfur. He said he decided to drop out of the peace talks in Kenya so he could direct a military campaign at home.

"I launched my vision of how the situation could be best handled," he said in his office in the National Palace, its entrance arched by a pair of giant elephant tusks and guarded by two five-barreled machine guns.

Taha said the government had no choice but to use force, arming local Popular Defense Forces and army reserves, to push back the rebels. But the United Nations and human rights groups also reported that the government bombed hundreds of villages and armed and financed Arab militias, known as Janjaweed, which then raided and burned many villages, driving nearly 2 million tribespeople, mostly Africans, off their land.

At the time, the government denied there were serious problems and shrugged off international criticism. Recently, however, Taha has taken on a more measured and conciliatory tone.

"Nobody would say we've been perfect in handling Darfur," he said in the interview. "In war, things happen that are outside of the normal. . . . In such a complex situation, there would be gaps and shortcomings. One wishes that this chapter in Sudan's history had not taken place."

Diplomats and other analysts said Taha's emerging role as statesman has demonstrated once more how practiced the Khartoum government is at survival. Another strength, they said, is its ability to tap into the tight circle of talented loyalists during a crisis.

"No one expected this government to stay in power for more than a year," said Gill Lusk, a senior analyst with Africa Confidential, a research group based in London. "They are extremely politically savvy. Their strategies worked very well at the start of Darfur. Taha runs a tight team, all with talents he understands well how to use."

For example, the government often sends out Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail to meet foreign officials and conduct tours with the news media. Ismail is known to foreign diplomats and aid workers as "Mr. Smile" for his ability to make dire situations sound just fine.

Last fall, when Jan Pronk, the U.N. special envoy to Sudan, visited Darfur, Ismail strode with him through a burned camp, which film footage showed had been destroyed by government soldiers. Ismail, standing amid the charred rubble, turned to Pronk and asked, "So where's the evidence?"

Around that time, the government also declared that a coup had been launched, a claim largely viewed by diplomats as political theater. Officials held news conferences warning that if the United Nations imposed sanctions on Sudan, it could end up in chaos, becoming a failed state and even a threat to the war on terrorism.

"Taha has perfected the art of divide and confuse," said John Prendergast, an analyst with the Brussels-based International Crisis Group. "He became the peacemaker in the south while he was the orchestrator of the counterinsurgency strategy in Darfur. Now he has attempted to make himself indispensable to the West on the peace process and counterterrorism."

Supporters of the government assert it has evolved with the needs of the country and is not to blame for defending itself in Darfur. But other observers say Sudanese officials have consistently outwitted international leaders while crushing political dissent at home.

It was the Bashir-Taha government that "introduced torture, executions and deliberate targeting of civilians to stay in power and achieve its military objectives," said analyst Ted Dagne of the Congressional Research Service, speaking from Washington. "They are a political class that is here to stay."