"Our troops are surrounding Muhajaria. Fighting is going on between us and the JEM," Sudanese army spokesman Abdel Samia Hajj al-Hassan told AFP without saying whether casualties were reported.

Nureddine Mezni, spokesman for the joint UN-African Union UNAMID peacekeeping force, said without elaborating: "I confirm that there have been air raids."

Last week JEM forces seized Muhajaria, formerly under the control of ex-rebels from the Sudanese Liberation Army (SLA) faction of Minni Minawi, the only group to have signed a peace deal with Khartoum in 2006.

The JEM rebels fired back on Saturday after the air attacks, an official said.

UNAMID asked both parties to refrain from escalating the situation, Mezni said. "People displaced by the conflict in Darfur sought refuge in the local UNAMID camp," he added. "We are taking care of their basic needs."

Two aid agency offices were burned during last week's JEM-SLA clashes, and international personnel from one agency were evacuated to Nyala, the main town in south Darfur some 80 kilometres (50 miles) west of Muhajaria.

"We have no contact with our local staff. It's frustrating," an official with one aid agency told AFP on condition of anonymity.

The United Nations says that up to 300,000 people in Darfur have died and more than 2.2 million have been displaced since the uprising against Sudan's Arab-dominated government started in February 2003. Khartoum says 10,000 died.

The conflict has deteriorated with the emergence of a multiplying array of rebel groups, breakaway militias and bandits.

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