Members of the Darfuri community react to news of an announcement by the International Criminal Court that an international arrest warrant has been issued Wednesday for Omar al-Bashir, the President of Sudan, on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, as they gather outside the Sudanese Embassy in London.

The Hague, Netherlands ? The president of Sudan became a wanted man Wednesday when the International Criminal Court charged him with war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur — its first action against a sitting head of state and one that could set the stage for more world leaders to be indicted.

President Omar al-Bashir’s government retaliated by expelling 10 humanitarian groups from Darfur and seizing their assets, threatening lifesaving operations, a U.N. spokeswoman said.

Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said the United States supported the court’s action “to hold accountable those who are responsible for the heinous crimes in Darfur.” Up to 300,000 people have died and 2.7 million have fled their homes in the region.

U.N. officials in Sudan will continue to deal with al-Bashir because he remains the president of the country, U.N. spokeswoman Michele Montas said in New York.

In the Sudanese capital of Khartoum, the government denounced the warrant as part of a Western conspiracy aimed at destabilizing the vast oil-rich nation south of Egypt. “There will be no recognition of or dealing with the white man’s court, which has no mandate in Sudan or against any of its people,” the Information Ministry said.

Several thousand people waving pictures of al-Bashir and denouncing the court turned out in a rally in Khartoum. Some waved posters of chief prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo’s face with pig ears superimposed to chants of, “Cowardly pig, you will not get to the Sudan.”

Al-Bashir, who denies the accusations, drove through the capital after the warrant was announced, waving at crowds. Security was tightened at many embassies, and some diplomats and aid workers stayed home amid fears of retaliation against Westerners.

The war in Sudan’s western Darfur region began in 2003, when rebel ethnic African groups, complaining of discrimination and neglect, took up arms against the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum.