SUDAN MIGHT BE drawn into the long civil war between Uganda and the vicious Lord's Resistance Army rebels led by Joseph Kony based in southern Sudan, following last week's attack on a Sudanese garrison by the rebels.

A Sudanese official based in Uganda said that if they were attacked again, they would consider taking action. "We are not going to stand by and watch when we are attacked," said the Sudanese official.

Initially, Sudan had avoided actively participating in the war against the rebels of Kony, only giving Uganda the permission to enter its territory and flush out the rebels.

Sudan's likely change of heart follows the attack on March 20 on Sudanese troops by the LRA rebels. The attack claimed the lives of a Uganda Peoples Defence Forces (UPDF) officer, Capt Kelil Magara, and a colonel in the Sudanese army. This was the second time in less than a month that the Sudenese army was coming under fire from LRA rebels, whom they once supported.

Army spokesman Major Shaban Bantariza said that Magara was one of the three Ugandan liaison officers attached to a Sudan People's Armed Forces (SAF) unit at Nisitu, in southern Sudan, which the rebels attacked.

He is reported to have died of hypertension after he ran for a long distance fleeing from the attackers, the army said. "When the LRA attacked the camp at Nisitu, they dispersed the soldiers there, so he ran for a long distance and collapsed on the way, where he was later found dead. He has been having a problem of high blood pressure," Bantariza said. The Sudanese colonel was shot dead.

Another UPDF officer was kidnapped in the second attack of its kind since the Uganda army entered Sudan to pursue the rebels. Sources said that the attacking rebels numbered over 100. 

A military analyst said that if Sudan were to join the war against the rebels, the UPDF's task of finishing them off would be made easier. "Kony does not have the capacity to fight two armies at the same time. These are the last kicks of a dying horse," said the analyst.

The rebels' attack on the Sudanese army was apparently due to the change of heart on the part of the Sudanese government. Khartoum, once the main backer of the rebels, is now co-operating with Uganda to finish them off. 

Sudan has at the same time rescued some of the abducted children being held in rebel camps near the Sudanese southern town of Juba. Uganda was given up to April 2 to deploy deep inside Sudan.

Some 8,000 to 10,000 boys and girls have been abducted over the 14 years the war has raged. Six thousand have yet to be accounted for. 

Following a protocol signed between their governments, the two countries appointed and exchanged army liaison officers.

Kony, who claims he wants to topple President Museveni's government and replace it with one run according to the Bible's Ten Commandments, has been sending into Uganda in small groups of about 15 to abduct and kill. 

"When they abduct you, they kill someone in your presence and tell you that if you try to escape, you will be killed in the same way. When you go to sleep, they tie a rope around your waist," says one of the rescued children.

Those abducted are given heavy loads to carry; those who fail to keep up with the pace are killed. 

All those who have been rescued say their lives will never be the same again. Many of them were forced to kill and main those who tried to escape from captivity. The girls are forced into marriage and raped by several rebels. 

Up to now, little is known about the rebel leader, Joseph Kony, the man behind the atrocities. Even to Ugandans, Kony has remained mysterious, with some arguing that the name Kony is used by all the LRA rebels.

Over the years he has been fighting, Kony, a former Catholic catechist, has created an aura of fear and mysticism around himself. One of the former abductees describes Kony as a tall, thin and dark man. He has long hair, which he has woven into dreadlocks.