March 4 (Reuters) - The International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague issued an arrest warrant on Wednesday for Sudanese president Omar Hassan al-Bashir for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur.

Here are some facts about Bashir:

DARFUR:

* Khartoum and leading Darfur rebel faction The Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) agreed in February to meet for peace talks and signed a deal with concessions from both sides.

* Sudan started negotiations in February with JEM, almost six years into a conflict that international experts say has killed 200,000 people and uprooted 2.7 million. Khartoum puts the death toll at 10,000 people.

* Bashir was accused in July 2008 by the ICC chief prosecutor of masterminding a campaign of genocide in Darfur.

WAR IN THE SOUTH:

* After nearly two decades of fighting in alliance with Sudan's Islamist movement, his government surprised many analysts when it forged a peace deal in 2004 with rebels seeking greater autonomy for the mostly animist or Christian south from the Muslim north.

* A cornerstone of the peace was agreement that Islamic law, sharia, would not apply in the south. The application of sharia across the ethnically and religiously diverse country had been a catalyst for the war that broke out in 1983.

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS:

* During the first decade of his rule, Bashir alienated many neighbours and Western governments with his increasingly extremist interpretation of Islam and alleged support for Islamic radicals abroad.

* Saudi-born al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was based in Sudan in the 1990s before being expelled. Relations between Bashir's government and the United States hit a new low in 1998, when Washington bombed a pharmaceuticals plant near Khartoum it said was making ingredients for chemical weapons. Sudan denied the charge.

ASCENT TO POWER:

* Bashir was born in 1944 in the Nile Valley north of Khartoum. The son of a small farmer, he graduated from Sudan's military academy in 1966 and was a career army officer who rose to the rank of general.

* He served at least one tour of combat duty in the south against the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA). In June 1989 he overthrew the democratically elected civilian government of former Prime Minister Sadeq al-Mahdi.

* In October 1993, he dissolved the military junta which brought him to power and appointed himself civilian president in a move designed to establish Islamic government in Africa's largest country as stable and civilian-based.

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