South Sudan is assembling an armour fleet, preparing for any eventuality in its enduring dispute with Khartoum. Lauren Gelfand and Allison Puccioni report
In September 2008 a Ukrainian-owned ship sailing towards the Kenyan port at Mombasa was hijacked off the coast of Somalia. Among a string of high-profile attacks by the Somali-based pirates, the vessel, the MV Faina, captured public attention for its cargo: 33 T-72 main battle tanks (MBTs), weapons and ammunition and documents including a freight manifest that identified the recipient as the government of South Sudan.
Officials familiar with the order confirmed to Jane's that the Faina cargo was the last of three shipments of weapons bound for the south, in transit from Mombasa. Published reports highlighted a previous shipment from Ukraine, which moved north without incident in February 2008, comprising additional T-72s and assorted artillery, as well as a first shipment that had arrived in Mombasa in November 2007. In total, military and diplomatic sources confirmed to Jane's, 100 MBTs were ordered by South Sudan.
The signing of an agreement in 2005 was meant to have brought peace to the fractured nation after more than two decades of war between north and south; the reality, however, is a country still riven and fractured, with competing interests for territory and receipts from oil reserves primarily in the south ahead of elections in 2010 and a referendum on southern independence due in 2011.
International observers including the UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) had expressed repeated and public concern about the systematic proliferation of weapons on both sides, including the purchase by Khartoum of 12 MiG-29 multirole fighter aircraft. That the south was also developing a significant armour fleet only added further credence to concerns about the potential escalation in tensions that an arms race could propagate.
A ransom was paid to liberate the Faina in February and the ship arrived at Mombasa's port. The tanks were offloaded and transported to Kahawa barracks outside Nairobi, where they were to remain in the possession of the Kenyan military. Since March 2009, however, eyewitness reports, some of them corroborated by photographic evidence, have placed the tanks elsewhere. At the same time, extensive construction has been ongoing at a military compound of the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) outside the capital, Juba.
Jane's began an extensive satellite imagery canvass of the area in question in March 2009, aiming to trace the definitive movement of T-72s from the port of Mombasa towards South Sudan. While the analysis does not conclude that the tanks that were aboard the Faina were in transit towards their ostensible rightful owners, it does show a pattern of tanks making their way north.
A first image captured by DigitalGlobe in March 2009 showed 33 tanks parked at Kahawa Barracks northeast of Nairobi (see image E). Satellite imagery captured at the same time in South Sudan showed ongoing construction at an SPLA compound several kilometres northeast of Juba (image C). That GeoEye-1 satellite image revealed tracked vehicles staged throughout the military facility and concealed under camouflage. Two vehicles with the distinctive identification features of the older model T-54/55 tanks were easily observed within the main compound, but at least 18 other vehicles were covered with camouflage, wedged into the vegetation around the compound, or 'blended' in plain sight next to small huts and equipment bays.
The attempts to conceal these vehicles were deliberate and masterful, but dimensional analysis, tracked-vehicle scarring and the staging of three vehicles in a tactical perimeter established the concealed vehicles as tanks. Furthermore, their size and dimensions suggested that they were not the smaller T-54/55s.
The tanks were covered in a distinctive camouflage covering that was identical to that seen on a DigitalGlobe satellite image from February 2008 showing 17 covered T-72 tanks aboard flatbed railcars at Mombasa's sea-rail transshipment port (image F).
In early May 2009, Jane's received photographic evidence of the SPLA facility at Juba, revealing the presence of nine new tracked vehicles in the compound's staging area.
DigitalGlobe's QuickBird satellite captured an image on 17 May that revealed that the same area had been levelled and three additional vehicles - for a total of 12 - were present (image A). Even though these vehicles had heavy dark canvas covering, they had the length-to-width ratio associated with tracked vehicles and the dimensions within the travelling configuration parameters of T-72s.
Tracked vehicle scarring, more evident in the soil because of a recent rainfall, was not only present around the staged vehicles but was traced 4 km south to the taxiway at Juba's airfield, indicating that these vehicles were airlifted to Sudan, probably in early May, and driven to the SPLA facility (image B).
Spokesman Malaak Ayeun confirmed to Jane's in late May that the SPLA had "previously acquired similar tanks to those that are still in Kenyan hands". "Yes, we have T-55s and T-72s, we have had them since last year and some even earlier," he said. "We have not yet even deployed them because we still need to train our crew; we have no reason to hide this. But the ones [hijacked in Somalia], I am 100 per cent sure they do not belong to us."
On 2 June Kenya's Daily Nation newspaper showed one of the distinctive vehicles on the back of a flatbed truck, perched precariously on the side of the road after an accident in central Kenya (image D).
The Kenyan government has repeatedly denied that the T-72s were anywhere but in Kahawa barracks. In an emailed statement on 28 May, government spokesman Alfred Mutua told Jane's: "The Kenyan military has, as is normal, been undertaking military manoeuvres in various parts of the country using different military equipment. However, the T-72 tanks are not included in the ongoing exercises. If you and a representative are available we could organise you to view all the T-72 tanks in a military installation in Nairobi."
Repeated requests by Jane's throughout the month of June for the Kenyan government to facilitate such a visit went unanswered.
Lauren Gelfand is JDW's Middle East/Africa Editor, based in London, and Allison Puccioni is Jane's Imagery Analyst, based in San Francisco
