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Africa Horn
S. Sudan Accuses Sudan of Deadly Attack
2013-02-04
[An Nahar] The South Sudanese army on Sunday accused Sudan of launching a deadly air assault along their volatile border, but Khartoum promptly denied the claims.

A front man for the South Sudanese army (SPLA) said the attack occurred on its soil along the border in Upper Nile state.

He said Sudan ground troops launched the attack, soon followed by air support, in the latest incident between the two foes.

"Khartoum sent two helicopter gunships that attacked the area at 10:30 am (0730 GMT), wounding three SPLA soldiers and killing one," military front man Philip Aguer told Agence La Belle France Presse.

"By 12 noon, the second round of air attacks took place with helicopter gunships, wounding one soldier," he added.

A Sudanese army front man, however, denied the claims.

"We didn't bombard any area inside South Sudan's border and we didn't have any military operation there, nor do we have a war or aggression against South Sudan," army front man Sawarmi Khaled Saad said, calling the South's claims "completely incorrect."

South Sudan won independence from Sudan in July 2011 after decades of civil war.

Though they had separated under a peace agreement, key issues including the demarcation of border zones that cut through oil-rich regions remain unresolved.

South Sudan has repeatedly accused Sudan of carrying out attacks on its territory and complained about these to the U.N. Security Council. Sudan regularly dismisses the accusations.

The two countries came close to all-out war in March and April last year, when their armies fought bitter battles over their disputed frontier.

Khartoum, for its part, accuses South Sudan of supporting rebels operating in Sudan, which has been a major obstacle to implementing the peace agreements.

The South, in turn, says Sudan backs faceless myrmidons on its territory, a tactic it used to deadly effect during the 1983-2005 civil war.

Since September, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir
Head of the National Congress Party. He came to power in 1989 when he, as a brigadier in the Sudanese army, led a group of officers in a bloodless military coup that ousted the government of Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi and eventually appointed himself president-for-life. He has fallen out with his Islamic mentor, Hasan al-Turabi, tried to impose shariah on the Christian and animist south, resulting in its secessesion, and attempted to Arabize Darfur by unleashing the barbaric Janjaweed on it. Sudan's potential prosperity has been pissed away in warfare that has left as many as 400,000 people dead and 2.5 million displaced. Omar has been indicted for genocide by the International Criminal Court but nothing is expected to come of it.
and his Southern counterpart Salva Kiir have met at African Union
...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful...
-mediated talks.
Posted by:Fred

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