20111112
Reuters
(Reuters) - Sudan's military is repairing and improving air bases in its Blue Nile state, potentially helping it step up air strikes in the conflict-stricken region along the border with South Sudan, a satellite monitoring group said Friday.

Sudan's foreign ministry dismissed the report, saying it was aimed at bolstering international sympathy for armed rebel groups and that the country's use of military airpower was appropriate and discriminate.

Violence around the poorly-defined border has heightened tensions between Sudan and South Sudan since the south declared independence in July. Analysts say the conflict threatens to drag the two old civil war foes into a proxy war.

The Yida refugee camp in Unity state was bombed Thursday, less than 25 kilometers (15 miles) from the border with Sudan. South Sudan accused Sudan of carrying out the attack and the United States condemned it. Sudan denied the charge.

The Satellite Sentinel Project said it captured images that appeared to show "active enhancement" of two air bases seized from rebels in Kurmuk on November 2, including what appeared to be four new helicopter landing pads built in the past week.

"These helipads will allow SAF (Sudanese Armed Forces) to base helicopter gunships and transport helicopters needed for the transport of air assault infantry near the border with South Sudan," the report said.

It said the upgrade "increases Sudan's capacity to carry out airstrikes along the border and in neighboring South Sudan."

Sudan foreign ministry spokesman El-Obeid Morawah dismissed the report as an attempt to garner support for armed insurgents and said Sudan does not use military aircraft against civilians or in South Sudan's territory.

"The Sudanese Armed Forces do not use aircraft except in specific cases and to attack rebel fighter groups," he said in an emailed statement.

The satellite images also showed three helicopter gunships and an Antonov aircraft on the airstrip of Blue Nile's state capital al-Damazin and work underway on a 250-meter expansion of the strip, the monitoring group added.

Rebels have battled government troops in Sudan's Blue Nile and South Kordofan states and South Sudan's Unity state has been the site of a separate insurgency. Both countries have accused the other of backing rebels on their side of the border.

REFUGEE CAMPS

The Satellite Sentinel Project said it had received reports that Sudan's military launched air strikes on a camp where refugees were staying in Guffa, in South Sudan's Upper Nile state, on November 8. The bombardment reportedly lasted four hours and killed seven people, it said.

Morawah said the accusations were "not at all correct" and that Sudan's military had not bombed camps or anywhere else in South Sudan's territory.

The Satellite Sentinel Project was founded by activist groups and others with the aim of preventing a resumption of full-scale war between Sudan and South Sudan by using field reports and analysis of satellite images.

South Sudan split off into Africa's newest nation in July after voting for independence in a January referendum. The plebiscite was promised in a 2005 peace deal that ended decades of devastating civil war.

Some 2 million people died in the conflict, waged over ethnicity, ideology, religion and oil.