The War the World Forgot [Sudan "Civil" War]

[Sophocles]

The War the World Forgot

People and Power investigates the forgotten war taking place on the borders between North and South Sudan.

25 Aug 2016 09:54 GMT South Sudan, Sudan, Omar Bashir
aljazeera.com

It's one of Africa's most bitter, if often forgotten, conflicts.

In 2011, South Sudan gained independence from Sudan following a 2005 peace deal that ended Africa's longest-running civil war.

After a referendum, in which an overwhelming majority of South Sudanese voted to secede, Africa's newest country came into being, the first since Eritrea split from Ethiopia in 1993.

But two Sudanese provinces, South Kordofan and Blue Nile, the people of which predominantly wanted to become citizens of the new nation, were excluded from the deal.

The SPLM-N, the northern affiliate of Sudan's People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) in South Sudan, consequently took up arms against the Sudanese government of President Omar al-Bashir, and fighting has continued on and off ever since.

Five years ago, as the war got under way, People and Power sent reporter Callum Macrae to investigate allegations of war crimes committed by the Bashir regime in the region. Last month he went back.

FILMMAKER'S VIEW

By Callum Macrae

To the northeast of rebel-held territory in the Nuba mountains of South Kordofan, in Sudan, there stands a small symmetrical hill, called Al Azarak. It is surrounded in the rainy season by lush green land which used to provide a good living for the small farmers who lived here. But no longer.


Al Azarak was the scene of bitter fighting between the SAF and the SPLA [Al Jazeera]

Last April it was seized by the forces of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir during a multi-pronged offensive designed to overwhelm the forces of the Sudan People's Liberation Army North (SPLA-N) in this central area of the Nuba mountains.

The offensive failed, and Bashir's forces were driven back on most fronts. Their only significant gain was this small hill, which is today the focal point of a tense military standoff. It now seems inevitable that when the fighting season resumes with the end of the rains in a couple of months, the trigger for renewed conflict will be the fight for this rather beautiful little hill.

This forgotten war began five years ago, just a couple of weeks before the partition of Sudan and the creation of the world's newest state of South Sudan. The Sudan People's Liberation Movement in South Kordofan and the Blue Nile had fought with the south in Sudan's long and bitter civil war, but were left in the north after partition.

READ MORE: A journey deep into Sudan's foresaken Blue Nile

The people of these two areas had been promised a public consultation on their future. But instead, Sudan launched a pre-emptive war against them. The SPLA-N fought back. Today they, and their political movement, the SPLM-N, insist that they have no desire to be part of the newly independent South Sudan, run by their bitterly feuding former comrades.

Instead, they say they want the overthrow of Bashir, and the creation of a new, democratic Sudan, in which the decades of discrimination against the Nuban people is ended.

I visited the rebel-held areas in 2011 just as this new war began. In those days, although Khartoum had banned anyone from entering the territory, it was still possible to fly in and land on an improvised runway cut from the bush. Today Bashir's bombs have made that impossible. Instead you must travel illegally, overland, from South Sudan - and in the rainy season that can only be done on quad bikes, a journey that can take the best part of two days.

A war against civilians

This is a cruel war, being fought on two fronts by the Sudanese government. The first is their conventional war with the SPLM North's army, the SPLA-N. That is a war no one is likely to win. The Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) are far larger and far better equipped than the SPLA. They are also backed by a large number of mercenaries and militias. But the SPLA know the area, are much fleeter of foot and, as they will often insist, they are volunteers fighting for their homeland. After five years of bitter fighting neither side has made significant gains.

But the government's second front is far less conventional. It is a war against civilians. A war fought using bombs dropped randomly on civilian targets, effectively rolled out of the back of old Russian Antonov transport planes.

While we were there we passed schools, hospitals and farmsteads destroyed by government bombing. In Kauda, the rebels' administrative capital, the government hospital has been abandoned after three huge parachute bombs failed to explode. Today they still sit there, embedded in the ground, a permanent, lethal threat. And there is no one who can disarm them because all NGOs, including de-mining companies, are banned by Khartoum.

Further north, on the way to the frontline at Al Azarak, we met Fatana Kodi and Abduraman Alom. Two months ago their four young children were playing with two friends in their small farmstead when two government jets flew overhead and shelled their home. All six children died instantly. There was no conceivable military target in the area. As we arrived we could hear the drone of an Antonov plane above - a constant threat.


Mothers displaced by the SAF assault on the village of Al Azarak [Al Jazeera]

But there is another tactic that Khartoum is accused of employing, and perhaps the most sinister of all. Locals say the government is deliberately preventing humanitarian access to the area, using the denial of food and aid as a weapon of war.

They also accuse the government of targeting agricultural land - as at the hill of Al Azarak - in an attempt to starve out the population. Locals warn of a growing incidence of malnutrition and epidemics caused by the lack of medical facilities and vaccination programmes.

The Sudanese government rejects these claims completely. A spokesman accused the SPLM-N of "terrorising" the population. He described them as "a branch of the SPLM that misrules South Sudan," and claimed that "arms and salaries are transferred through the porous border".

Last month, Khartoum announced a unilateral ceasefire, describing it as a chance for the SPLA-N "to join the peace process and surrender their arms". It played well internationally but was dismissed as meaningless by people in South Kordofan and the Blue Nile who say fighting is largely suspended during these months anyway because the rainy season renders the government's heavy artillery immobile.

Last week the African Union-mediated peace talks stalled after Khartoum rejected the SPLM's calls on Khartoum to lift its blockade on humanitarian aid and allow access via Ethiopia. The government said the route could be used to supply weapons to the rebels. The SPLM-N, which believes Khartoum would use exclusive controls over humanitarian access strategically as a weapon of war, suggested a compromise whereby 80 percent came via the government and only 20 percent via Ethiopia, but that was rejected.

And so the people of both South Kordofan and the Blue Nile are preparing once again for the fighting to restart. It would mark the start of year six of this forgotten war.

Source

[Sophocles]

Rampaging South Sudan troops raped foreigners and killed local journalist

Jason Patinkin
AP
Mon, 15 Aug 2016 18:25 UTC


© AP Photo/Jason Patinkin, File

The soldier pointed his AK-47 at the female aid worker and gave her a choice.

"Either you have sex with me, or we make every man here rape you and then we shoot you in the head," she remembers him saying.

She didn't really have a choice. By the end of the evening, she had been raped by 15 South Sudanese soldiers.

On July 11, South Sudanese troops, fresh from winning a battle in the capital, Juba, over opposition forces, went on a nearly four-hour rampage through a residential compound popular with foreigners, in one of the worst targeted attacks on aid workers in South Sudan's three-year civil war. They shot dead a local journalist while forcing the foreigners to watch, raped several foreign women, singled out Americans, beat and robbed people and carried out mock executions, several witnesses told The Associated Press.

For hours throughout the assault, the U.N. peacekeeping force stationed less than a mile away refused to respond to desperate calls for help. Neither did embassies, including the U.S. Embassy.

The Associated Press interviewed by phone eight survivors, both male and female, including three who said they were raped. The other five said they were beaten; one was shot. Most insisted on anonymity for their safety or to protect their organizations still operating in South Sudan.

The accounts highlight, in raw detail, the failure of the U.N. peacekeeping force to uphold its core mandate of protecting civilians, notably those just a few minutes' drive away. The Associated Press previously reported that U.N. peacekeepers in Juba did not stop the rapes of local women by soldiers outside the U.N.'s main camp last month.

The attack on the Terrain hotel complex shows the hostility toward foreigners and aid workers by troops under the command of South Sudan's President Salva Kiir, who has been fighting supporters of rebel leader Riek Machar since civil war erupted in December 2013. Both sides have been accused of abuses. The U.N. recently passed a U.S.-sponsored resolution to send more peacekeeping troops to protect civilians.


© AP Photo/Jason Patinkin, File
First Vice President Riek Machar, left, looks across at President Salva Kiir.

Army spokesman Lul Ruai did not deny the attack at the Terrain but said it was premature to conclude the army was responsible. "Everyone is armed, and everyone has access to uniforms and we have people from other organized forces, but it was definitely done by people of South Sudan and by armed people of Juba," he said.

A report on the incident compiled by the Terrain's owner at Ruai's request, seen by the AP, alleges the rapes of at least five women, torture, mock executions, beatings and looting. An unknown number of South Sudanese women were also assaulted.

The attack came just as people in Juba were thinking the worst was over.

Three days earlier, gunfire had erupted outside the presidential compound between armed supporters of the two sides in South Sudan's civil war, at the time pushed together under an uneasy peace deal. The violence quickly spread across the city.

Throughout the weekend, bullets whizzed through the Terrain compound, a sprawling complex with a pool, squash court and a bar patronized by expats and South Sudanese elites. It is also in the shadow of the U.N.'s largest camp in Juba.

By Monday, the government had nearly defeated the forces under Machar, who fled the city. As both sides prepared to call for a cease-fire, some residents of the Terrain started to relax.

"Monday was relatively chill," one survivor said.

What was thought to be celebratory gunfire was heard. And then the soldiers arrived. A Terrain staffer from Uganda said he saw between 80 and 100 men pour into the compound after breaking open the gate with gunshots and tire irons. The Terrain's security guards were armed only with shotguns and were vastly outnumbered. The soldiers then went door to door, taking money, phones, laptops and car keys.

"They were very excited, very drunk, under the influence of something, almost a mad state, walking around shooting off rounds inside the rooms," one American said.

One man wore a blue police uniform, but the rest wore camouflage, the American said. Many had shoulder patches with the face of a tiger, the insignia worn by the president's personal guard.

For about an hour, soldiers beat the American with belts and the butts of their guns and accused him of hiding rebels. They fired bullets at his feet and close to his head. Eventually, one soldier who appeared to be in charge told him to leave the compound. Soldiers at the gate looked at his U.S. passport and handed it back, with instructions.

"You tell your embassy how we treated you," they said. He made his way to the nearby U.N. compound and appealed for help.

Meanwhile, soldiers were breaking into a two-story apartment block in the Terrain which had been deemed a safe house because of a heavy metal door guarding the apartments upstairs. Warned by a Kenyan staffer, more than 20 people inside, most of them foreigners, tried to hide. About 10 squeezed into a single bathroom.

The building shook as soldiers shot at the metal door and pried metal bars off windows for more than an hour, said residents. Once inside, the soldiers started ransacking the rooms and assaulting people they found.


© Adriane Ohanesian via AP

Some of the soldiers were violent as they sexually assaulted women, said the woman who said she was raped by 15 men. Others, who looked to be just 15 or 16 years old, looked scared and were coerced into the act.

"One in particular, he was calling you, 'Sweetie, we should run away and get married.' It was like he was on a first date," the woman said. "He didn't see that what he was doing was a bad thing."

After about an hour and a half, the soldiers broke into the bathroom. They shot through the door, said Jesse Bunch, an American contractor who was hit in the leg.

"We kill you! We kill you!" the soldiers shouted, according to a Western woman in the bathroom. "They would shoot up at the ceiling and say, 'Do you want to die?' and we had to answer 'No!'"

The soldiers then pulled people out one by one. One woman said she was sexually assaulted by multiple men. Another Western woman said soldiers beat her with fists and threatened her with their guns when she tried to resist. She said five men raped her.

During the attack on the Terrain, several survivors told the AP that soldiers specifically asked if they were American. "One of them, as soon as he said he was American, he was hit with a rifle butt," said a woman.

When the soldiers came across John Gatluak, they knew he was local. The South Sudanese journalist worked for Internews, a media development organization funded by USAID. He had taken refuge at the Terrain after being briefly detained a few days earlier. The tribal scars on his forehead made it obvious he was Nuer, the same as opposition leader, Riek Machar.

Upon seeing him, the soldiers pushed him to the floor and beat him, according to the same woman who saw the American beaten.

Later in the attack, and after Kiir's side declared a ceasefire at 6 p.m., the soldiers forced the foreigners to stand in a semi-circle, said Gian Libot, a Philippines citizen who spent much of the attack under a bed until he was discovered.

One soldier ranted against foreigners. "He definitely had pronounced hatred against America," Libot said, recalling the soldier's words: "You messed up this country. You're helping the rebels. The people in the U.N., they're helping the rebels."

During the tirade, a soldier hit a man suspected of being American with a rifle butt. At one point, the soldier threatened to kill all the foreigners assembled. "We're gonna show the world an example," Libot remembered him saying.

Then Gatluak was hauled in front of the group. One soldier shouted "Nuer," and another soldier shot him twice in the head. He shot the dying Gatluak four more times while he lay on the ground.

"All it took was a declaration that he was different, and they shot him mercilessly," Libot said.

The shooting seemed to be a turning point for those assembled outside, Libot said. Looting and threats continued, but beatings started to draw to a close. Other soldiers continued to assault men and women inside the apartment block.

From the start of the attack, those inside the Terrain compound sent messages pleading for help by text and Facebook messages and emails.

"All of us were contacting whoever we could contact. The U.N., the U.S. embassy, contacting the specific battalions in the U.N., contacting specific departments," said the woman raped by 15 men.

A member of the U.N.'s Joint Operations Center in Juba first received word of the attack at 3:37 p.m., minutes after the breach of the compound, according to an internal timeline compiled by a member of the operations center and seen by AP.

Eight minutes later another message was sent to a different member of the operations center from a person inside Terrain saying that people were hiding there. At 4:22 p.m., that member received another message urging help.

Five minutes after that, the U.N. mission's Department of Safety and Security and its military command wing were alerted. At 4:33 p.m., a Quick Reaction Force, meant to intervene in emergencies, was informed. One minute later, the timeline notes the last contact on Monday from someone trapped inside Terrain.

For the next hour and a half the timeline is blank. At 6:52, shortly before sunset, the timeline states that "DSS would not send a team."

About 20 minutes later, a Quick Reaction Force of Ethiopians from the multinational U.N. mission was tasked to intervene, coordinating with South Sudan's army chief of staff, Paul Malong, who was also sending soldiers. But the Ethiopian battalion stood down, according to the timeline. Malong's troops eventually abandoned their intervention too because it took too long for the Quick Reaction Force to act.

The American who was released early in the assault and made it to the U.N. base said he also alerted U.N. staff. At around dusk, a U.N. worker he knew requested three different battalions to send a Quick Reaction Force.

"Everyone refused to go. Ethiopia, China, and Nepal. All refused to go," he said.

Eventually, South Sudanese security forces entered the Terrain and rescued all but three Western women and around 16 Terrain staff.

No one else was sent that night to find them. The U.N. timeline said a patrol would go in the morning, but this "was cancelled due to priority." A private security firm rescued the three Western women the staffers the next morning.

"The peacekeepers did not venture out of the bases to protect civilians under imminent threat," Human Rights Watch said Monday in a report on abuses throughout Juba.

Asked why U.N. peacekeepers didn't respond to repeated pleas for help, the U.N. said it is investigating.

"Obviously, we regret the loss of life and the violence that the people who were in Hotel Terrain endured, and we take this incident very seriously," the deputy spokesman for the U.N. secretary-general, Farhan Haq, told reporters Monday. "As you're aware, we have called on the national authorities to investigate this incident thoroughly and to bring the perpetrators to justice."

The U.S. Embassy, which also received requests for help during the attack, "was not in a position to intervene," State Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau told reporters Monday. She said the U.S. ambassador instead contacted local government officials, and she noted that the Terrain area was controlled by South Sudanese government forces at the time.

Samantha Power, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said that "during the fighting throughout the city, the U.S. Embassy in South Sudan responded to distress calls from the compound and urgently contacted South Sudanese government officials, who sent a response force to the site to stop the attack."

"We are deeply concerned that United Nations peacekeepers were apparently either incapable of or unwilling to respond to calls for help. We have requested and are awaiting the outcome of an investigation by the United Nations and demand swift corrective action in the event that these allegations are substantiated," she said in a statement.

The assault at the Terrain pierced a feeling of security among some foreigners who had assumed that they would be protected by their governments or the hundreds of U.N. peacekeepers almost next door.

One of the women gang-raped said security advisers from an aid organization living in the compound told residents repeatedly that they were safe because foreigners would not be targeted. She said: "This sentence, 'We are not targeted,' I heard half an hour before they assaulted us."

Source: Sott.net

[amor]

In the NWO's greed for world control of people and resources, the UN is not concerned with protecting anyone. They play one faction off against another, giving them weapons to wreak havoc on others. People without sentiments of universal compassion for man and beast and who use their sex organs as weapons for their own satisfaction are worse than wild animals and should be isolated from humanity. They are Martians and/or brute beasts. If the Satanists think they can run this planet without Christianity they are about to find out they cannot, and the hard way, for they shall lose all they think they have and can gain.

As for melding cultures which are vastly different in their sexual urges and religious and cultural beliefs, they are best each left to themselves to wreak their havoc within their own kind. The pure African is a tribal creature who naturally thinks not much further than his penis and his stomach. Without Christian sensibilities he is best left without dangerous weapons. Corruption is second nature to him and he cares little for others even of his own kind it seems, e.g. Edie Amine. Educate him and the crudity lies little below the surface. I have lived among these people who have varying levels of mixtures and know what I am talking about. That said, it seems men in general cannot separate their brains from sex, even if they are homosexual with a penis the size of your little finger. Testosterone harbors a lower form of mentality. I will not take back a single word of this. I can say more, but it will fall on deaf ears.

[amor]

Who has decided to start WWIII? The top 13 banking families in The City of London. Who finances the creation of the armaments? Same answer. Whose corporations are manufacturing these Arms? The same answer. What do they want? Total control of Earth lands and death and suppression of its peoples. Do they have replacement free energy? Yes. Why won't they use it instead of oil? Because people freed from their economic slavery are out of their control. Why won't they attach a magneto to the rotating mechanisms of vehicles to feedback power to the vehicle batteries and electric motors? Because that will bring down their oil empire of control.

[wnlight]

It is all part of the plan of TPTB (or TPTW) and their savage NWO dreams. The USA is simply their largest player in the role of international terrorism and destruction.

[Sophocles]

Somalia: Al-Shabab gunmen attack beach restaurant

aljazeera.com
26 August 2016

Gunmen detonate a car bomb and storm a beach restaurant in the capital Mogadishu, killing at least 10 people.


The beachside shootout is the latest in a series of al-Shabab attacks in Somalia aimed at toppling the Western-backed government

At least 10 people have been killed after al-Shabab fighters attacked a beach restaurant in the capital Mogadishu with a car bomb before entering into a gunfight with security forces, according to police and the group.

"A car bomb exploded at Banadir beach restaurant at Lido beach and there is exchange of gunfire. We have no other details so far," Major Ahmed Ibrahim, a police officer, told Reuters news agency on Thursday.

The al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabab group claimed responsibility for the attack.

"We attacked the Banadir beach restaurant and now our fighters are fighting inside it," Abdiasis Abu Musab, its military operation spokesman, told Reuters.

The Associated Press news agency reported that a car bomber had prematurely detonated an explosives-laden vehicle near the new Turkish embassy compound in the capital, according to a Somali police officer.

Al-Shabab has carried out a series of deadly attacks in Somalia to try to topple the Western-backed government.

In January, its fighters stormed another restaurant on Lido beach, killing 17 people.

On Thursday, Reuters witnesses near the scene of the beach attack said the restaurant had been sealed off by security officers and that the attackers had lobbed grenades at the officers and fired at them.

They said they had also seen two bodies lying on the ground.

Internal Security Minister Abdirizak Omar Mohamed said on his Twitter account: "Warning: People near the blast scene should stay in the hotels and in their houses in which they are inside. Cars should not enter Lido beach area."

Al-Shabab was pushed out of Mogadishu by the African Union peacekeeping force AMISOM in 2011 but has remained a potent threat in Somalia, launching frequent attacks aimed at overthrowing the Western-backed government.

In a separate incident in southern Somalia, a roadside bomb believed to have been planted by al-Shabab fighters wounded at three people in Baardheere town in Gedo region, Colonel Hussein Nur, a police officer in the town, told Reuters by phone.

Al-Shabab was pushed out of Mogadishu by the African Union peacekeeping force AMISOM in 2011 but has remained a potent threat in Somalia, launching frequent attacks aimed at overthrowing the Western-backed government.

On Sunday, more than 20 people were killed when its suicide bombers detonated two car bombs at a local government headquarters in Somalia's semi-autonomous Puntland region.

Source

[Hervé]

It seems that "The War The World forgot" has been successfully re-buried anew... right? ... Cider?

== EDIT ==

Cider, I split fourteen posts on the US/Saudi vs Yemen issue to a new thread here:

https://projectavalon.net/forum4/show...=1#post1093216

Please be more aware of where you are posting your material, and you can always start another thread if you cannot find a related subject matter thread.

Thanks, Sierra

[Cidersomerset]

Sudanese president extends ceasefire in three conflict regions

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=Tp2ScJ2boSs

Published on 11 Oct 2016
Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir on Monday extended the ceasefire unilaterally
declared in three regions of the country where tens of thousands have been killed
in fighting between government forces and rebels have killed.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Riek Machar leaves Khartoum for 'medical tests' in South Africa

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=bdgFywCOOeI

Published on 12 Oct 2016


The former rebel leader of South Sudan Riek Machar left Khartoum Wednesday
where he lives in exile since he fled Juba after heavy fighting in July, saying he
was travelling to South Africa for "medical examinations".

This was the first appearance before the press by the rebel leader since July.
According to the journalists present at the briefing, the former rebel leader
appeared healthy.

"I go now to South Africa for further medical tests (...) and after that I leave
South Africa," he told re…
READ MORE : http://www.africanews.com/2016/10/12/...

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Parliament proposes tough sanctions against South Sudan’s leaders

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=iheUtgbxzcc

Published on 12 Oct 2016
Mps are now pushing for sanctions against South Sudan President Salva Kiir and
his bitter rival Riek Machar for disregarding the peace deal signed last year. The
Mps want the two leaders’ assets in Kenya frozen and their children and relatives deported.


==================================================

South Sudan Interview

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=Uw-PFV52YPo

Published on 11 Oct 2016

At the height of the resurgence of South Sudanese clashes that were widely condemned by the UN, 
I Conducted a studio interview with South Sudanese Ambassador for Kenya Jimmy Makuach and
SPLA/IO Rep. Lam Jok during the recent South Sudanese clashes that the UN has termed as a
violation of the IGAD Peace Deal 2015. An introspective interview on the opposition leader Machar,
President Kiir’s regime and the resignation of South Sudanese minister Lam Akol who largely
represented neutrality within the government

====================================================

World View: Interview South Sudan Crisis 12/10/2016

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=iYVkQebRnhw

Published on 12 Oct 2016
World View: Interview South Sudan Crisis 12/10/2016

[Hervé]

Revealed: US Fighter Jets, Troops Have Been Deployed in East Africa Since July


Sputnik Sat, 15 Oct 2016 15:39 UTC

© AP Photo/ Ahn Young-joon

The US Air Force deployed a fleet of aircraft to east Africa over the summer to respond to potential threats in South Sudan.

A statement released by US Africa Command on October 13 indicates that the Pentagon has been prepared to engage in South Sudan since July, when the US Air Force quietly moved a number of F-16 fighters and KC 135 refueling tankers to Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti.

"[The deployment was a] precautionary measure in order to protect Americans and American interests in South Sudan if required," said a statement from US Africa Command, according to Stars and Stripes.

"These assets have remained in Djibouti out of an abundance of caution in response to that situation in South Sudan." The move included roughly 50 combat-ready troops.

Defensive in nature, the deployment was a response to diplomatic personnel coming under fire.

"I can say that we do not believe our vehicles and personnel were specifically targeted in the attack," US State Department spokesman Mark Toner told reporters in September.

"It's our assessment that the attack was connected to the breakdown of command and control among South Sudanese government forces, and we have demanded that the government of South Sudan investigate this incident and punish and hold accountable those responsible for it."

© Nick Turse/TomDispatch, 2015, U.S. military outposts, port facilities, and other areas of access in Africa, 2002-2015.

Also on Thursday, the US military launched strikes on three radar installations in Yemen. A response to recent threats made on naval vessels in the Red Sea, this marked the first time the United States has directly engaged in the Yemen conflict.

The strikes came in the wake of recent missile attacks on the USS Mason and other US Navy ships operating in international waters near the Bab al-Mandab Strait that separates Yemen and Djibouti.

"Early this morning local time, the US military struck three sites in Houthi-controlled territory on Yemen's Red Sea coast. Initial assessments show the sites were destroyed," Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said.

"These limited self-defense strikes were conducted to protect our personnel, our ships and our freedom of navigation in this important maritime passageway. The United States will respond to any further threat to our ships and commercial traffic as appropriate, and will continue to maintain our freedom of navigation in the Red Sea, the Bab al-Mandeb and elsewhere around the world."

[Cidersomerset]

PRESS TV....

Week of violence in South Sudan kills 60: Army


Fri Oct 14, 2016 6:18PM


Peacekeeping forces deployed by the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) patrol outside
the premises of the UN Protection of Civilians (PoC) site in Juba, South Sudan, October 4, 2016.


South Sudan's military has warned about the surge of violence in the country, raising fears of a full-scale
civil war."Fighting in South Sudan killed at least 60 people this week," South Sudan's army spokesman
Brigadier General Lul Ruai Koang said on Friday."Armed men loyal to former Vice President Riek Machar
killed 11 government soldiers and 28 civilians from Saturday to Thursday," Koang said. "Twenty-one rebels
were also killed."Koang also accused the rebels of "burning civilians, maiming women and child abductions
and setting ablaze properties." A spokesman for the rebels was not immediately available for comment.

Koang’s remarks came after the United Nations’ peacekeeping mission in the country sounded the alarm
over the deadly surge of violence across the country.

read more
http://presstv.ir/Detail/2016/10/14/...an-Juba-UNMISS