After a quixotic attack in Sudan, a question lingers: Why?

“What was JEM trying to do?” asked David Mozersky, a Sudan analyst for International Crisis Group, a research institute that follows conflict zones throughout the world. “It’s hard to imagine they thought they could capture the capital with 50 to 100 cars.”

John Prendergast, a founder of the Enough Project, which campaigns against genocide, said he thinks the attack was a ploy to gain leverage. The rebels wanted “to slap” the governing National Congress Party, he said, “then cut a power sharing deal with the ruling party, without the other Darfur factions.”

“We’re seeing in part a continuation of the internal battle between Islamist factions,” he said, referring to the fact that both the Darfurian rebels of the Justice and Equality Movement and Sudanese government officials, though sworn enemies, share an Islamist agenda.