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Foreign Policy:

One of FP‘s Top Ten Stories you Missed in 2008 is resurfacing again today in Southern Sudan’s Kordofan region. As we noted late last year, the region has all the makings of the next Darfur: strategic positioning between northern and southern regions, a scarcity of resources, and increasingly armed militant groups on either side.

Today, that comparison is even more pointed. The central government appointed Ahmed Haroun, wanted by the International Criminal Court for orchestrating the genocide in Darfur, to run Kordofan.

If the ICC’s prosecutor is correct, Haroun was elemental in the deployment of the infamous janjaweed militias to scorch and burn Darfur. And if our reporting for the Ten Stories was correct, he might be asked to do his “good work” again — this time in Kordofan. The flashpoint will likely be the 2010 elections. Armed groups in the region (who feel aggrieved and disincluded from both the southern and northern governments), as well as government troops (who see the region as a pivotal strategic point between north and south) look ready to use the barrel of the gun to secure the ballot.