Sudan Threatens to Occupy 2 More Disputed Regions

Tensions shot up last week when northern forces stormed into Abyei, a contested region that straddles the border and is claimed by both the northern and southern governments.

Now, according to a letter from the Sudanese military’s high command, the northern army, in the next few days, plans to take over Blue Nile and Southern Kordofan states, two disputed areas with a long history of conflict that are still bristling with arms.

Analysts, local leaders and Western diplomats fear that if the northern army carries through on its threat to push out or forcibly disarm the thousands of fighters allied to the south in these two areas, it could set off a much bigger clash between the northern and southern armies, who have been building up their arsenals for years in anticipation of war.

Malik Agar, Blue Nile’s governor, said Sunday night that northern forces had recently moved “dangerously close” to the bases of southern-allied fighters and that he didn’t think the southern-allied forces would surrender.

“It’s like putting a cat in a corner,” Mr. Agar said. “They will fight.”

Sudan’s border is a dizzyingly complex mosaic of ethnic groups and political loyalties. It is also home to the bulk of the country’s crude oil and some of the most fertile land in the country, making the question of how exactly to draw a line across Sudan one of the most explosive issues the nation confronts as it prepares to split in two.

Under peace agreements signed several years ago, joint forces were supposed to patrol some of these disputed areas. The two sides had agreed that Abyei would hold a referendum to decide if it were to join the north or south, a compromise that was essentially blotted out on May 21 when thousands of northern Sudanese soldiers marched into Abyei. Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile were supposed to conduct a less formal, vaguely defined “popular consultation” process that southerners say has not been completed.

Southern Sudan is just weeks away from attaining independence, a goal that has taken more than 50 years and millions of lives. The region, one of the poorest and least developed places on earth, where four out of five adults cannot read, defied expectations in January by holding an orderly, organized referendum on independence, in which nearly 99 percent voted to split off. In the past week, southern leaders have absorbed the loss of Abyei, complaining bitterly about it but deciding not to respond with military force, saying that could jeopardize all that they had sacrficied for.

On Sunday, southern leaders indicated that they would not fight over Blue Nile or Southern Kordofan either.

“It is not our priority now to get involved in a war,” said Barnaba Marial Benjamin, the information minister for the government of southern Sudan. He also said high-level negotiations were about to begin in Khartoum, Sudan’s capital, over several of these border issues.

But what may be more dangerous this time is that there are many more southern-allied fighters stationed in Blue Nile and Southern Kordofan than there were in Abyei — possibily tens of thousands, compared with a few hundred in Abyei who quickly retreated last weekend when faced with a clearly superior northern Sudanese force.

“The move into the Nuba in particular will be explosive,” said Eric Reeves, a professor at Smith College and one of the leading academic voices on Sudan. “The amount of weaponry and men under arms is tremendous.”

Nuba is a mountainous region of Southern Kordofan state that is technically part of northern Sudan but became one of the strongholds of the southern rebels during the civil war in the 1980s and 1990s.

Now, the southern-allied fighters there are in a more desperate situation than southern troops were in Abyei. These two states are rife with northern forces and northern-backed militia, and the Nuba Mountains are not even contiguous with the south. If the fighters in these areas give up their weapons, they will be at the mercy of the northern Sudanese forces whom they have fought for years.

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Wheldon Wins Second Indy 500

To meet the shortage of primary care doctors, charge to specialize.

Our infatuation with technology provides an easy alternative to love, writes Jonathan Franzen.

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The Caucus: For Palin, a Short Ride With Lots of Rumbling

Damon Winter/The New York TimesSarah Palin at the “Rolling Thunder” bike rally on Sunday.

Sarah Palin made a grand entrance at the Rolling Thunder biker rally on Sunday, wearing a black Harley-Davidson helmet and visibly enjoying herself as a crush of reporters and bikers swarmed her motorcycle.

Ms. Palin, the former governor of Alaska, was joined by her husband, Todd, who was wearing a matching helmet, and her daughters, Bristol and Piper. Their arrival at the Pentagon North parking lot turned the lazy Sunday morning into a celebrity affair.

Ms. Palin climbed aboard a chopper, assisted by a member of the Rolling Thunder staff, but was unable to move because there were so many members of the press snapping photos. Organizers eventually brought in police, also on motorcycles, to clear a path.

After moving just a few feet, Ms. Palin got off the bike to sign autographs and talk with the crowd. At one point she could be heard discussing “the missing,” a reference to the soldiers still missing in action — a key part of the Rolling Thunder cause.

Her plans for the day had been a closely guarded secret among those in her small circle of advisers. Rumors flew for most of the morning that she was on her way, and that she would ride a motorcycle with the Rolling Thunder bikers.

That’s exactly what she did. Ms. Palin rode on the back as another woman drove her motorcycle. Todd Palin drove another motorcycle, with Piper on the back, and Bristol rode on a third with another driver.

Organizers for the rally said the Palins would not be among the speakers during the Rolling Thunder rally on the National Mall later in the afternoon.

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A Year at War: After Combat, the Unexpected Perils of Coming Home

Capt. Adrian Bonenberger made plans for his final patrol to Imam Sahib. But inside, he was sweating the details of a different mission: going home. Which soldiers would drive drunk, get into fights or struggle with emotional demons, he wondered. What would it take to keep them safe in America?

Sgt. Brian Keith boarded the plane home feeling a strange dread. His wife wanted a divorce and had moved away, taking their son and most of their bank account with her. At the end of his flight lay an empty apartment and the blank slate of a new life.

“A lot of people were excited about coming home,” Sergeant Keith said. “Me, I just sat there and I wondered: What am I coming back to?”

For a year, they had navigated minefields and ducked bullets, endured tedium inside barbed-wired outposts and stitched together the frayed seams of long-distance relationships. One would think that going home would be the easiest thing troops could do.

But it is not so simple. The final weeks in a war zone are often the most dangerous, as weary troops get sloppy or unfocused. Once they arrive home, alcohol abuse, traffic accidents and other measures of mayhem typically rise as they blow off steam.

Weeks later, as the joy of return subsides, deep-seated emotional or psychological problems can begin to show. The sleeplessness, anxiety and irritability of post-traumatic stress disorder, for instance, often take months to emerge as combat veterans confront the tensions of home and the recurring memories of war.

In their new normal, troops must reconnect with children, adjust to more independent spouses and dial back the hypervigilance that served them well in combat — but that can alienate them from civilians.

“The hardest part for me is, I guess, not being on edge,” said Staff Sgt. Francisco Narewski, a father of three who just completed his second deployment. “I feel like I need to do something, like I need to go on mission or I need to check my soldiers. And I’m not.”

For the First Battalion, 87th Infantry out of Fort Drum, N.Y., which recently finished a yearlong tour, leaving Afghanistan proved as deadly as fighting in Afghanistan. In the first 11 months of deployment, the battalion lost two soldiers, both to roadside bombs. During the next month, it lost two more, neither in combat.

On March 9, the day before he was scheduled to leave Kunduz, Specialist Andrew P. Wade, 22, was accidentally shot and killed by a friend who was practicing a drill with his 9-millimeter pistol inside their tent.

Three weeks later, Specialist Jeremiah Pulaski, who had returned from Afghanistan in February, was shot and killed by a police officer after he shot and wounded a man outside a bar in Arizona. He was 24.

Both soldiers were considered among the best in the battalion. Specialist Wade, a whiz with a soccer ball, was a member of the elite scouts platoon and on a fast track to promotion. Specialist Pulaski could be quick to use his fists in an argument but was revered for his fearlessness on the battlefield.

Specialist Pulaski was awarded a Bronze Star with Valor for dashing across an open field during an ambush in December, drawing enemy fire away from his platoon. Later that same day, he killed several insurgents as they were trying to ambush his unit near a village called Haruti.

Captain Bonenberger, Specialist Pulaski’s company commander, said the soldier saved his life twice that day — and it gnawed at him that he had been unable to return the favor.

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