UNITED NATIONS – Testing its ability to follow through on its warnings, the U.N. Security Council is set today to consider an American proposal to penalize four Sudanese men involved in atrocities in the Darfur region. The vote will follow Osama bin Laden’s threats over the weekend to retaliate against Westerners who get involved in Sudan.

The American proposal, which cites U.N. resolutions that since July 2004 have promised measures to punish Sudanese individuals, would enact economic sanctions against four men who are responsible for what Washington has defined as “genocide” in Darfur. The names in the resolution were shown to council members last week, but have not been made public for fear the men might shelter their assets against confiscation.

According to a council diplomat who requested anonymity, they include a former Sudanese army commander of the western military region, Major General Gaffar Mohamed el-Hassan, and a government-backed Janjaweed militia chief, Sheik Musa Hilal. Two rebel leaders, Sudan Liberation Army commander Adam Yacub Shant, and the field commander of the National Movement for Reform and Development, Gabril Abdul Kareem Badri, are also named in the resolution.

Enacting sanctions against them, however, met resistance in council negotiations last week. And in yet another complication, Mr. bin Laden’s most recent videotaped message, shown on the Arabic-language TV channel Al-Jazeera, contained a call for supporters to “wage a long-term war against the Crusaders in western Sudan.”

The government of Sudan hosted Mr. bin Laden in the 1990s, but the Sudanese foreign minister, Jamal Mohammed Ibrahim, yesterday dismissed the terrorist leader’s call for jihad. Khartoum is “not concerned with any mujahedeen or any crusade or any war with the international community,” he said.

The statement seemed to contradict Sudan’s President al-Bashir, who told Al-Jazeera in February, “We are strongly opposed to any foreign intervention in Sudan, and Darfur will be a graveyard for any foreign troops.”

Secretary-General Annan’s envoy to Sudan, Jan Pronk, said there was “a lot of talk about Al Qaeda in Khartoum” at that time, and that to scare away international involvement, the government is spreading conspiracy theories about “foreigners” trying to turn Sudan into another Iraq or Afghanistan.

Those on the Security Council who oppose sanctions found support for their position last week when an African Union negotiator in peace talks at Abuja, Nigeria, Salim Ahmed Salim, said that while threats of sanctions might push the warring sides to an agreement, they could also harm the sensitive negotiations.

American diplomats hope a statement supporting the Abuja talks, which is expected to be adopted by all 15 council members today, will increase support afterward for the proposal to impose penalties against the Sudanese men. But China and Russia oppose any sanctions, and both declined yesterday to exclude the possibility that they will cast a veto vote.

China’s ambassador to the United Nations, Wang Guangya, said sanctions could lead to “negative implications for the negotiation in Abuja.” And Russia’s acting U.N. ambassador, Konstantin Dolgov, said, “There have been signs that the discussions which we’re holding at the Security Council have already had some negative effect” on Abuja.

One of the men threatened with sanctions, General el-Hassan, is accused of serving as the link between Sudan’s national army and the Janjaweed nomadic tribesmen who terrorized Darfur villagers, according to the council diplomat. Supplying weapons to the Janjaweed, General el-Hassan has coordinated Janjaweed attacks that have left hundreds of thousands dead and made refugees of millions more.

Sheik Hilal, according to the diplomat, controls a 300,000-strong Janjaweed militia, and has bragged in press interviews about his role in the atrocities. Mr. Shant is accused of ordering attacks by rebel SLA soldiers in violation of a July 2005 cease-fire agreement. Mr. Badri is accused of kidnapping U.N. workers in Sudan last October and attempting to shoot down an African Union helicopter in November.