Two boys walk past a battlewagon belonging to rebel fighters in Darfur. About 300,000 people have been killed in the region's conflict since 2003, prompting UN intervention and war crimes investigations against the leadership of Sudan. (Stuart Price/Albany Associates/Associated Press)

The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court [ICC] will ask for an arrest warrant to be issued next week that names the president of Sudan as a suspect in genocide and other crimes against humanity, diplomats and UN officials said Friday.

The charges would be in connection with the ongoing conflict in Sudan’s Darfur region, where up to 300,000 people have died in what began as an uprising by ethnic African rebels but now features attacks on civilians and non-combatants by Arab militia groups, reportedly backed by Khartoum.

The diplomats and officials, who requested anonymity as a condition of speaking to journalists, said prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo is expected to name top Sudanese leaders, including President Omar al-Bashir, as war crime suspects when he appears before judges at the ICC next Monday in The Hague, Netherlands.

Last month, Moreno-Ocampo said Sudan’s “entire state apparatus” was involved in attacks on civilians in Darfur, something Khartoum has long denied. Monday’s hearing and indictment are part of an investigation he has been conducting for months into the Darfur situation.

“I would expect Bashir to be among those named,” a senior UN diplomat told the Reuters news agency and in Washington, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said he was aware the Sudanese leader might be indicted next week.

“That is what we have heard,” McCormack said, but wouldn’t comment further.

A spokesman for Bashir said the Sudanese government would not hand any suspects over to the ICC’s war crimes investigators.

The country’s UN ambassador, Abdalmahood Abdalhaleem Mohamad, said any move by the ICC to arrest the country’s senior leaders would “destroy” peace hopes in Darfur.

“[Moreno-]Ocampo is playing with fire,” Mohamad told the Washington Post. "If the United Nations is serious about its engagement with Sudan, it should tell this man to suspend what he is doing with this so-called indictment. There will be grave consequences”

UN security discussions already under way

The Post reports that UN security council diplomats have been discussing how to improve security for United Nations organizations and the joint UN-African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur.

At least seven of those troops were killed Tuesday in an ambush by an as-yet unidentified group.

Analysts said an indictment of Bashir and members of his cabinet could gravely complicate the UN’s work in Darfur, where the international body is charged with protecting civilians and ending the conflict between rebels and the Arab Janjaweed militias.

At the same time, the UN is involved in gathering information for the ICC war crimes investigation.

"If the procedure is going the way it seems it's going to go, of course we have to be aware of the effects it would have on the ground," France's UN Ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert said Friday of the court's expected action.

But some experts on Darfur said the benefits of laying high profile charges against Sudanese leaders outweigh the risks. .

"If the prosecutor requests an arrest warrant against the president of Sudan for genocide or crimes against humanity or both, it will be a huge step in limiting the impunity for horrific acts committed against innocent people in Dafur," said Richard Dicker, director of the international justice program for Human Rights Watch.

Arrest warrant decision could take 3 months

Sudan does not recognize the court's authority and has for months refused to arrest and send for trial a government minister and rebel leader charged with atrocities by Moreno-Ocampo last year.

The chief prosecutor told journalists earlier this week that he expects ICC judges to take up to three months to decide on his request for arrest warrants.

Moreno-Ocampo has laid charges against at least 11 people since 2004, and the court has never refused his request for an arrest warrant.

Other national leaders who have faced international war crimes indictments while they were still in office are Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia and Charles Taylor of Liberia. Milosevic died in his cell in The Hague in 2006, shortly after the end of his trial. Taylor is currently being tried for crimes against humanity at the ICC.