HIGHLIGHTS: President Orders Army to 'Take Every Path & Use All Weapons' to Retake Torit||Rebels' Spokesman Accuses Government of Starting the Fight for the East Equatoria Town||Experts Do not Expect Fighting & Freeze on Talks to Last Long||Military Preparations for a Major Offensive to Retake Torit Already Underway|| STORY: The Sudanese government indefinitely suspended peace talks and prepared to launch an offensive to win back a town captured by southern rebels, only weeks after a preliminary peace agreement raised hopes the country's 19-year civil war might finally be nearing an end.

"The Sudanese delegation to the Kenya talks will suspend the talks as of today because of the atmosphere created by the military operations and the occupation of Torit town" by the Sudan People's Liberation Army, Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail told reporters in Cairo Monday.

In Khartoum, the Sudanese capital, President Omar el-Bashir said he had ordered government negotiators to leave Kenya and return to Sudan immediately and called on the army to "take every path and use all weapons" to retake Torit.

"We must show the rebels that, If God is willing, we shall be victorious in this war," he told reporters after he offered his condolences to the Khartoum family of Khaled Ali Abdullah, a physician killed in the SPLA assault on Torit.

Speaking after a meeting with Ahmed Maher, his Egyptian counterpart, Ismail said: "When we are convinced that the rebel movement is serious about continuing toward peace and achieving a peace settlement, then the situation will change."

Reached by The Associated Press in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, SPLA spokesman Samson Kwaje said he has yet to receive official word of the government's suspension. He added it would be "unfortunate" if the government pulled out and accused the government of starting the fight for the East Equatoria town of Torit.

With a negotiated end in sight, both sides could be trying to gain ground and bargaining chips.

The suspension of the talks in Kenya poses a challenge to the United States, which has declared ending Sudan's civil war was one of its foreign policy priorities. Washington played a key, behind-the-scenes role in persuading the two sides to sign a preliminary peace agreement on July 20 in Machakos, Kenya.

Gamal Abdel-Gawad, a Sudan expert at Cairo's Center for Political and Strategic Studies, said he did not expect the fighting and the freeze on talks to last long.

"It's not impossible for the situation to regress to a pre-Machakos stage, but it's very costly for both sides, particularly for the Sudan government," he said.

In Khartoum, state television showed footage of a meeting it said was held Monday morning between el-Bashir, in combat fatigues, and his top military officers.

El-Bashir, a career army officer with firsthand experience of the war in southern Sudan, had taken a political gamble by agreeing to the July 20 deal, which northern hard-liners had said gave away too much to the rebels.

Under the deal, el-Bashir's Islamic government agreed to separate state and religion and that six years after a full agreement was signed, Sudanese in the mainly Christian and animist south would vote on whether to remain part of the country.

Sunday, Sudan announced the loss of Torit to the SPLA after what it said were two days of rebel shelling. Kwaje told the AP Monday that the SPLA took Torit in response to attacks by government troops on SPLA positions outside the town and that the troops were apparently on their way to try to recapture the SPLA-held town of Kapoeta 120 kilometers (75 miles) to the east.

On Monday, Sudanese state radio quoted army spokesman General Mohamed Basher Suliman as saying troops and supplies were being ferried to the south in preparation for a major offensive to recapture Torit.

Ismail, the Sudanese foreign minister who was in Cairo for an Arab League foreign ministers' meeting later this week, said the army would fight to regain land "occupied by SPLA after the signing of Machakos."

The army and the official media were again calling the SPLA "the enemy" - since Machakos, the term had been "the movement."

State television on Sunday night showed troops from the Popular Defense Forces - paramilitary forces composed mainly of young volunteers - getting ready to move to the south.

PHOTO CAPTION
The Sudanese Government has suspended peace talks after the rebels captured the major southern town of Torit.