Sudan rebels accuse govt of 'terrorist' tactics

NAIROBI, Aug 10 (Reuters) -- Sudanese rebels accused the government on Thursday of launching a "terrorist" campaign against civilians in the rebel-held south and said this could cause a humanitarian disaster.

The repeated bombing of civilian targets by government warplanes over the last few weeks has forced aid agencies to suspend their operations in southern Sudan.

"It is terrorist warfare. It is psychological warfare," Elijah Malok, head of the relief arm of the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), told reporters in the Kenyan capital.

"The government cannot win the war from the air. This is not a battle with the SPLA, it only kills civilians."

Deliberate targeting of relief aircraft, health centers and aid workers by government bombers in recent weeks has frightened off aid agencies which help an estimated three million people in the south, according to Malok.

On Tuesday, the U.N.-led relief effort, Operation Lifeline Sudan, was temporarily suspended after "a shower of 18 bombs" fell near a U.N.-marked aircraft in the southern town of Mapel on Monday. The same town was bombed on Wednesday, the U.N. said.

"There are a huge number of people in southern Sudan already displaced by the fighting," Malok said. "People are without food and shelter. Now that crisis will remain unattended."

The SPLA and other rebel groups have been fighting Sudan's Islamic government for 17 years in pursuit of greater autonomy for the mainly Christian and animist south of the country, Africa's largest in area.

Around 100,000 people died in a famine in the southern province of Bahr el Ghazal in 1998 following a three-month ban on relief flights by the government.

In all, an estimated two million people are thought to have died in the conflict and related famines.

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