Ever since Darfur hit the media radar in early 2004, Khartoum has been accused of backing Janjaweed militia in raping, looting, torching and mass-murdering in western Sudan.

The Sudanese government has always denied it. Khartoum says the militia forces drawn mainly from nomadic Arab tribes are bandits beyond the state's control.

Now, for the first time, the commander of one of the biggest and most important Janjaweed groups has gone on the record claiming his men received direct orders and heavy weaponry from the government.

Extraordinary footage to be broadcast on Britain's Channel 4 on March 14 shows an interview with Mohammed Hamdan, leader of 20,000 Janjaweed who control most of southern Darfur.

It's the closest thing yet to hard evidence that Khartoum has used Janjaweed as proxy forces to crush rebel groups and sow misery in Darfur.

Hamdan claims he met Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir twice - once at Bashir's home - to receive orders to carry out campaigns in Um Sidr and Kiryari in northern Darfur after they had been taken by Darfur rebels.

The footage shows Hamdan's men displaying what they say are Sudanese Armed Forces identity cards and a big arsenal of rocket launchers, anti-aircraft guns and mortars, alongside a fleet of 126 brand new Toyota Land Cruisers.

"The hardware that we have?" Hamdan tells the team from Channel 4's Unreported World series. "Where did we get it from? Do you think we just magicked it out of the air? It belongs to the government. Even the weapons, the cars, all that you see, we got it from the government."

The Associate Parliamentary Group on Sudan, a UK political lobby group, got a sneak preview of the footage on Tuesday at Britain's parliament. The film showed close-ups of Chinese-made heavy artillery at Hamdan's garrison near the government stronghold of Nyala. Hamdan said the Sudanese government had been supplying the arms as late as October 2007.

A U.N. arms embargo forbids the supply of weapons to armed groups in Darfur. Beijing denies breaking the embargo, although Chinese characters on the artillery were plain to see.

Perhaps not surprisingly, Hamdan was keen to refute accusations that his men have been involved in atrocities in Darfur, including mass rape and murder. He said he had refused to carry out government orders to attack civilian areas.

And he argued that the Sudanese government, having used him and his men to fight its battles, made them a scapegoat for atrocities committed by others and excluded them from the political process. He said promises were broken - of aid for Arab villages and a share in the running of Darfur.

Hamdan's militia defected from the government last October, throwing its lot in with the non-Arab rebels it had previously been fighting. The move threatened to shift the balance of power in the rebels' favour.

At the time of filming, Hamdan was in talks to re-enter into an alliance with the government. The Unreported World team says the government has since given in to his demands and the militia has agreed to take up arms again on Khartoum's behalf.

How Khartoum will react to his on-camera allegations remains to be seen. But Channel 4's footage suggests a degree of resentment and disaffection among some Janjaweed that could be an important dynamic in Darfur's ongoing tragedy.

"They are very specific about what they want," said Nima Elbagir, the journalist who interviewed Hamdan. "They want proportional representation at talks and they want proportional representation in Khartoum."

"Meet the Janjaweed" will be broadcast on Britain's Channel 4 at 1935 GMT on March 14. It will be available online at Channel 4 on Demand.

Reuters AlertNet is not responsible for the content of external websites.