Sudan Limiting U.S. Officials' Travel
Sudan's president announced Sunday that visiting American officials would be barred from traveling more than 15 miles from the presidential palace in the capital Khartoum without a special permit.

President Omar al-Bashir, just back from the U.N. General Assembly in New York, said the new limits were in response to what he said was unfair scrutiny of Sudanese officials by U.S. Homeland Security during the U.S. visit.

"The measure is effective as of Monday," al-Bashir said.

In Washington, a State Department spokeswoman had no immediate response to al-Bashir's statement.

Meanwhile, the African Union said Sunday it will send more peacekeeping troops to Sudan's Darfur region and toughen the soldiers' role in protecting civilians while the international community pressures the Sudanese government to allow a U.N. military force.

The underfunded and ill-equipped AU force has had little success in halting ethnic fighting that has killed at least 200,000 people and chased 2.5 million from their homes since 2003.

Al-Bashir lashed at the U.S. and reiterated his "total rejection" of the Aug. 31 U.N. Security Council resolution that calls for 20,000 U.N.-commanded soldiers to take over peacekeeping from the AU in Darfur.

He told journalists the United States and Britain "want to use the Darfur issue to re-colonize Sudan" and reshape the Middle East in Israel's interests.

He also claimed the humanitarian crisis there had been overblown by the Western media.

"I challenge any precise statistic that shows the fighting killed more than 10,000 people in Darfur," he said, adding that others may have died from famine.

Aid groups say continued fighting is making the humanitarian disaster even worse. The war pits Arab militiamen allied with the Arab-dominated national government in Khartoum against ethnic Africans who rebelled in a long-standing dispute over land and water in the arid region.

The AU mission was scheduled to wrap up at the end of September and be replaced by a larger U.N. force, but Sudan's leaders fiercely opposed such a move and the AU agreed to stay on until at least the end of the year.

AU leaders are finalizing plans to add 1,200 soldiers to the existing 7,000-strong force, officials said. Even more soldiers could come if NATO provided adequate logistics support and the Arab League and other international donors provided funding, the officials said.

"We are being asked to assume a broader and broader mission, but we need the means to do so," Monique Mukaruliza, acting head of the AU mission in Sudan, told The Associated Press.

AU officials said the bloc's peacekeepers also intend to broaden their rules of engagement so they can protect civilians more efficiently.

Under their new "concept of operations," peacekeepers would not only monitor violence and investigate incidents, but also actively interfere to prevent attacks on civilians by the multiple rebel groups and pro-government militias that plague the region, they said.

The AU's spokesman in Sudan, Nouredinne Mezni, said the new rules would enable peacekeepers to better implement a peace agreement signed in May between Sudan and the main Darfur rebel group.

Jan Pronk, the head of the U.N. in Sudan, said last week that the accord was "in a coma," and international aid groups say violence has only worsened since it was signed.

At least a quarter of all people in northern Darfur are now suffering from malnutrition, the U.N. has said. More than 350,000 are largely cut off from food aid and medical care because fighting makes the north too dangerous for aid agencies, U.N. officials say.