Images challenge bombing claim
SOUTH Sudan president Salva Kiir has asked for forgiveness from Wau state residents for “mistakes and suffering” committed by the state during the civil war and has also called for peaceful coexistence.
Kiir’s plea on Tuesday followed the resumption of his tour to promote peace in the Greater Bahr El Ghazal region after he briefly returned to the capital, Juba, on Monday to receive the Eritrean president and the Ethiopian prime minister, who were there to consolidate regional co-operation.
During his speech at a public rally in Wau city, the president apologised for mistakes committed by his government in the past which had dragged South Sudan into civil war.
Kiir acknowledged that his Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), which had struggled for independence from Sudan, was also the same group that had subsequently caused undue suffering to the people of South Sudan.
“You, the people of Wau, I want to apologise to you, I have to apologise to you because what happened in 2013 and 2016 is what brought you to this point of suffering. And it was the SPLM, the same party that was struggling for the independence of South Sudan, which went to war against itself over a power struggle,” said Kiir.
“The civil war is what brought you suffering and I have to accept this, as the head of state, although I did not do anything. I find myself mistaken because it is my party that brought the problem to my people,” he said.
Civil war erupted in 2013 following clashes between the South Sudan president and SPLM chairman, and his former vice-president and SPLM deputy-chairman, Dr Riek Machar, which led to the eruption of fighting in Juba and the rest of the country.
Clashes broke out once again in July 2016 despite the recently signed peace agreement which allowed Machar to return to South Sudan.
The East African Regional bloc the Intergovernmental Authority on Development has been nudging the parties towards a settlement following various breaches of the peace treaty.
The inhabitants of Wau are mainly Dinka and Fertit, as the town lies on the tribal boundary between these two ethnic groups. Minorities belonging to the Luo, Jur Modo/Jur Beli, Balanda Boor/Balanda Bviri, and Nuer peoples are also in Wau. Kiir is an ethnic Dinka while Machar is a Nuer. The fighting in the world’s newest country has often reflected tribal divisions. | African News HIGH-RESOLUTION satellite images show that a religious school run by Jaish-e-Mohammad in north-eastern Pakistan still stands days after India claimed its warplanes had hit the Islamist group’s training camp on the site and killed many militants.
The images produced by Planet Labs Inc, a San Francisco-based private satellite operator, show at least six buildings on the madrasa site on Monday, six days after the air strike
Until now, no high-resolution satellite images were publicly available. But the images from Planet Labs, which show details as small as 72cm, offer a clearer look at the structures the Indian government said it attacked.
The image is virtually unchanged from an April 2018 satellite photo of the facility. There are no discernible holes in the roofs of buildings, no signs of scorching, blown-out walls, displaced trees around the madrasa or other signs of an aerial attack. ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has arrested 44 suspects in an operation against the militant group blamed for a deadly suicide bombing in Indiaadministered Kashmir, the Interior Minister said on Tuesday.
The arrests included leaders of the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) group, said Interior Minister Shehryar Afridi. The brother and another close relative of JeM chief Maulana Masood Azhar were arrested. | dpa
The images cast further doubt on statements made over the last eight days by the Indian government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, that the raids early on February 26 had hit all the intended targets at the madrasa site near Jaba village and the town of Balakot in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
India’s foreign and defence ministries did not reply to questions sent in the past few days seeking comment on what is shown in the satellite images and whether they undermine its official statements on the airstrikes.
Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Non-Proliferation Project at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, who has 15 years’ experience in analysing satellite images of weapons sites and systems, confirmed that the high-resolution satellite picture showed the structures in question.
“The images don’t show any evidence of bomb damage,” he said.
The Indian government has not publicly disclosed what weapons were used in the strike. Government sources said last week that 12 Mirage 2000 jets carrying 1 000kg bombs carried out the attack. On Tuesday, a defence official said the aircraft used the Israeli-made Spice 2000 glide bomb in the strike. A warhead that size is meant to destroy hardened targets such as concrete shelters.
Lewis and Dave Schmerler, a senior research associate at the James Martin Centre for Non-Proliferation Studies, who also analyses satellite images, said weapons that large would have caused obvious damage to the structures visible in the picture.
“If the strike had been successful, given the information we have about what kind of munitions were used, I would expect to see signs that the buildings had been damaged,” Lewis added. “I just don’t see that here.”
Pakistan has disputed India’s account, saying the operation was a failure that saw Indian jets, under pressure from Pakistani planes, drop their bombs on a largely empty hillside.
“There’s been no damage to any infrastructure or human life,” said Major General Asif Ghafoor, of the Pakistan military. | architects to build outside of Japan, Isozaki’s “global citizenry” made his work “truly international,” said Tom Pritzker, chairman of the foundation that sponsors the prize.
News Agency (ANA)