Sudan's shadowy militia

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MISTEREI, Sudan - They wear uniforms without insignia, travel a rolling countryside of char- red and emptied villages on camels, horses or pickup trucks with mounted machine guns, and call themselves "the Quick and the Horrible."

International monitors and non-Arab African farmers who accuse them of raping, killing and burning call them something else: Janjaweed.

Fighters in this stronghold -- visited by journalists Tuesday for the first time since the conflict in Darfur began -- belong to the government-allied Arab militia that international monitors blame for the worst atrocities of the 20-month-old war.

The Darfur war has killed more than 50,000 people and driven 1.4 million from their homes. Almost all of the displaced are non-Arab Africans, targets of what the United States says is a genocidal campaign by Khartoum's Arab-dominated government.

Sudan is accused of coordinating military aerial bombing runs with ground raids by the Arab militia in the attacks on Darfur's non-Arab villages, although all sides say mass attacks on civilians have eased under international scrutiny.

The Sudanese government describes its allies in Darfur as militias hastily organized to defend against rebels. The fighters known as Janjaweed, Khartoum says, are renegades and bandits, and the government has no ties to those men.

But the international community and the victims of the violence say the fighters in Misterei are the Janjaweed.

The fighters in Misterei said Tuesday that they have close ties to the government -- in coordination, sympathies and the monthly salaries of about $20 that each collects.

"The government called on us to defend our land, and the tribes responded," said fighter Ina Saleh, a member of the Arab Rizigat tribe, wearing a uniform with no marks or name tag. "We responded, like the other tribes."

Misterei, in northern Darfur, 16 miles west of the town of Kabkabiyeh, is identified by foreign governments and international rights groups as the birthplace of the Janjaweed.