SUDAN - Sept. 26 - Sudan And Rebels Take Big Step To Peace.

Kenya One of Africa's longest-running and deadliest wars took a major turn toward peace on Sept. 25 as the government of Sudan agrees to withdraw most of its troops from the rebel-held south of the country and begin integrating its soldiers with those of the rebels into a unified army.The agreement between the government and the Sudan People's Liberation Army will take years to come to fruition, even without setbacks. Still, the deal signed Sept. 25 at this Kenyan resort was heralded as the most significant step toward peace since fighting broke out in 1983. On a continent torn by so much conflict, the war in Sudan has been a particularly vicious one. Two million people, mostly civilians, have died from bullets and bombs as well as from war-induced disease and famine. The survivors have faced untold suffering in an oil-rich country that is nonetheless very poor. The religious dimension to the conflict - the north is Islamic and the southern rebels are mostly Christian and animist - has turned the war into a cause celebre among America's religious conservatives. African Americans have focused their outrage on the practice by government-backed militia of taking southerners into forced servitude. The Bush administration has pushed hard for an end to the war. A lasting peace would enable the White House to claim victory in stabilizing one Muslim country at a time when another, Iraq, appears more chaotic by the day. The Kenyan mediator General Lazaro Sumbeiywo, who has led the talks for 18 months, calls the security agreement "a clear demonstration that the Sudanese have jointly decided to cross the bridge of peace together". The Sept. 25 deal builds on an agreement signed in July 2002 in Machakos, Kenya, that laid out the broad outlines of Sudan's future. A referendum is to be held in six years to allow those in the south of Sudan to decide on unity or independence. Until then, Sudan will exist in limbo, with a transitional government and army. According to the security deal, the Sudanese government agrees to scale back its forces in the south of the country from the current total of more than 100,000 to 12,000. The rebels also committed to withdrawing their forces from areas in the north. ( Sudan is Africa's largest country in land area, larger than France, Germany and Spain combined). Both sides in the conflict will provide troops to an integrated force. In southern Sudan, each side will contribute 12,000 soldiers to the joint force. In two other rebel strongholds, the Nuba Mountains and the Southern Blue Nile, the government and the rebels will each contribute 3,000 troops to the combined unit. The movement of troops must be completed, according to the deal, within two and a half years of the signing of a comprehensive peace accord, which is still in the works. The security deal was considered one of the major hurdles facing negotiators, but others remain". As with many peace processes, the closer the endgame draws, the more strident, obstructionist and legalistic the parties become," the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based research agency, says in a recent assessment of the talks. "The government and the SPLA both are drawing lines in the sand and claiming they cannot cross them".