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XOOPS textsanitizer automatically make the 'url' XoopsCode type link open in a new, blank window. XOOPS adds a rel='external' to the link when it's decoded from the XoopsCode to actual HTML.
EDIT: Technically to get rel='external' to work correctly you would need javascript (or similar) in a standards based way. Recently HTML5 has re-introduced target=_blank and it appears this will be the preferred method moving forward.
XOOPS core should consider changing rel='external' back to target='_blank' in HTML <a> links. See
http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/browsers.html#valid-browsing-context-name-or-keyword