In parallel, satellite imagery captured from southern Sudan showed tracked vehicles, parked under camouflage, at a Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) compound northeast of Juba, the capital of South Sudan. Jane’s observed that SPLA attempts to conceal the location “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.”

All told, Jane’s estimates that South Sudan has ordered around 100 main battle tanks. Observers have worried that an arms race is now under way between the Khartoum government and the government of South Sudan. A comprehensive peace deal was reached in 2005 after two decades of civil war, but that agreement has recently frayed. A referendum in 2011 opens the possibility that South Sudan may secede