USA Military aircraft fired upon by militias

News and info about the conquest of South Sudan [link]

"Evacuation operation aborted as U.S. planes come under fire in South Sudan"
2013-12-21 by Barbara Starr and Tom Watkins, CNN [http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/21/world/africa/south-sudan-violence/]:
Washington (CNN) -- A mission to evacuate Americans from South Sudan was aborted Saturday when an aircraft carrying U.S. military members was fired upon as it prepared to land in Bor, wounding four of them, the Pentagon said.
The most severely damaged aircraft was thought to have been hit in the fuel line, a military official speaking on condition of anonymity said.
All three aircraft -- CV-22 Ospreys -- were diverted to Entebbe, Uganda, which is not where their flights originated, the official said. Another aircraft then flew the wounded to Nairobi, Kenya, U.S. Africa Command said in a statement.
The four service members were in stable condition after treatment, the statement said.
Pentagon officials were trying to determine how to mount another effort to evacuate the roughly three dozen Americans in South Sudan, where they have been working for the United Nations, a senior U.S. official said on condition of anonymity.
Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel was "reviewing options," Pentagon press secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby said. "Whatever we do it will be in coordination with the State Department," he added.
The White House said U.S. President Barack Obama was briefed before dawn Saturday while aboard Air Force One after landing in Hawaii, then met with his national security team on the matter.
The fighting has displaced as many as 100,000 people, many of whom have crossed the Nile River, he said, adding that he feared a humanitarian disaster was unfolding.
South Sudanese President Salva Kiir blamed soldiers loyal to his former vice president, Riek Machar, for starting this month's violence.
Tensions have been high in South Sudan since July, when Kiir dismissed Machar and the rest of the Cabinet. The move inflamed tensions between Kiir's Dinka community and Machar's Nuer community.
Casualties include soldiers and number in the hundreds, the government said.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry called Kiir on Saturday and discussed ways to halt the violence. It was Kerry's second call to Kiir since Thursday night.
"Secretary Kerry emphasized that only through leadership and political dialogue will the challenges facing South Sudan be resolved," State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in a statement.
The two men "discussed the need to prevent ethnic violence, their concern for the welfare of thousands of internally displaced persons fleeing the conflict, as well as for the safety of U.S. citizens in South Sudan, and they agreed to speak again soon," she said.
Meanwhile, the State Department issued an emergency message for U.S. citizens, calling on them to avoid the area around the airport in Bor. Limited flights were continuing from Juba International Airport.
On Friday, Kerry said he was sending a special envoy -- Ambassador Donald Booth -- to the country.
"Now is the time for South Sudan's leaders to rein in armed groups under their control, immediately cease attacks on civilians, and end the chain of retributive violence between different ethnic and political groups," Kerry said in a statement.
Saturday's violence wasn't the first this week to harm foreign troops in South Sudan. On Thursday, attackers killed two Indian army peacekeepers, wounded a third, and killed two to 20 of 30 civilians who were seeking refuge at the United Nations' Akobo base, the U.N. said.
In a news release, the African Union called for an immediate truce.
It said that the chairwoman of the AU Commission, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, was "profoundly dismayed at the recent turn of events" and condemned the killing of innocent civilians and U.N. peacekeepers in Bor as a war crime.
South Sudan became the world's newest country when it split from Sudan in July 2011. The split happened after a 2005 peace agreement ended years of civil war between the largely Animist and Christian south and the Muslim-dominated north.
The deal led to a January 2011 referendum in which people of the south voted to secede from Sudan.


"U.S. aircraft hit by gunfire in South Sudan as conflict worsens"
2013-12-21 by Carl Odera for "Reuters" newswire [http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/21/us-southsudan-unrest-aircraft-idUSBRE9BK07G20131221]:
JUBA - Three U.S. aircraft came under fire from unidentified forces on Saturday while trying to evacuate Americans from a spiraling conflict in South Sudan. The U.S. military said four of its members were wounded in the attacks.
Nearly a week of fighting in South Sudan threatens to drag the world's newest country into a Dinka-Nuer ethnic civil war just two years after it won independence from Sudan with strong support from successive U.S. administrations.
The U.S. aircraft came under fire while approaching the evacuation site, the military's Africa Command said in a statement. "The aircraft diverted to an airfield outside the country and aborted the mission," it added.
The statement said all of the three Osprey CV-22 aircraft involved in the mission had been damaged.
Consequently, U.S. President Barack Obama warned that any move to take power by military means would lead to an end of U.S. and international community support for South Sudan.
The United Nations mission in South Sudan said one of four U.N. helicopters sent to Youai, in Jonglei state, had come under small-arms fire on Friday. No crew or passengers were harmed.
Hundreds of people have been killed in the fighting between Dinka loyalists of President Salva Kiir and Nuer supporters of former Vice-President Riek Machar, who was sacked in July and is accused by the government of trying to seize power.
Fighting has spread from the capital, Juba, to vital oilfields and the government said a senior army commander had defected to Machar in the oil-producing Unity State.
The German military said on Saturday it had evacuated 98 people, including Germans and other nationals, from South Sudan by air to neighboring Uganda. The German ambassador to South Sudan was among them, the Foreign Ministry in Berlin said.
A separate plane took Lieutenant-General Hans-Werner Fritz, chief of Germany's Operations Command, along with his aides and five other Germans, to Berlin, the military said.
After meeting African mediators on Friday, Kiir's government said on its Twitter feed that it was willing to hold talks with any rebel group. The United States is sending an envoy to help find a negotiated solution.
South Sudan's foreign minister, Barnaba Marial Benjamin, told Reuters the government had given African mediators the go-ahead to meet Kiir's rivals, including Machar and his allies.
Ethiopia's Foreign Minister Tedros Adhanom, who led an East African delegation of foreign ministers in Juba aimed at mediating between the feuding sides, said the team did not manage to meet Riek Machar face to face, neither did they make phone contact.
"We are trying to contact them. We are hopeful of having both sides on the negotiating table within the space of 10 days," Tedros told Reuters.
In their meeting with Kiir, Tedros said they were also aiming to get humanitarian aid to afflicted populations unhindered.

CEASEFIRE CALL -
Benjamin said Lieutenant-General Lazarus Sumbeiywo, sent to South Sudan by Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, had stayed behind along with a Kenyan diplomat after the African mediators left on Saturday and would work on making contact with Machar.
Sumbeiywo was the chief mediator in the talks that led to the signing of the 2005 peace agreements with north Sudan.
"So on the side of the government ... we have established dialogue without any condition," Benjamin said. "All we say, we urge former Vice-President Riek Machar not to incite the people of South Sudan through ethnic configuration."
United Nations staff say hundreds of people have been killed across the country, which is the size of France, this week and that 35,000 civilians are sheltering at U.N. bases.
The United Nations said on Friday at least 11 Dinka civilians had been killed during an attack by about 2,000 armed youths from another ethnic group on a U.N. peacekeeping base in Jonglei state. Two Indian peacekeepers were also killed.
The African Union called on Saturday for a Christmas ceasefire, and its chairwoman Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma described the killings of civilians and U.N. peacekeepers as a war crime.
Reuters television footage showed several hundred government troops leaving Juba to deploy in Jonglei state.
Toby Lanzer, the U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator in South Sudan, said via Twitter that Bor, in Jonglei state, remained tense. "We've heard clashes & seen bodies in the streets. Civilians have left town to flee for their safety," he wrote.
Information Minister Michael Makuei told Reuters an army divisional commander in Unity State, John Koang, had defected and joined Machar, who had named him the governor of the state.
Jacob Dut, a political science lecturer at the University of Juba, said most army divisions had between 10,000 and 13,000 troops, although not all were fully manned.
"Division 4 (Koang's unit) is adjacent to the border with Sudan. That means there is more military hardware and that means that this defection is a big loss," Dut said.