South Sudan rebel chief vows to seize oil fields

Riek Machar said that war in South Sudan would not end unless President Salva Kiir was removed from power, AFP reported on Tuesday.

"If we are to remove the dictator, Juba is a target, oil fields are a target," Machar said, referring to Kiir.

"We are only resisting a regime that wants to destroy us," added the rebel leader, who was speaking at a secret location in Upper Nile state late on Monday.

The 62-year-old former vice president said he was ready to hold direct talks with Kiir but questioned the idea himself, saying, "What would we discuss? You are a discredited leader, you have committed massacres. I hope he accepts that."

He also accused the South Sudanese president of "corruption by exploiting our resources," claiming, "He is buying more arms, more ammunition."

The political crisis in South Sudan began after Kiir accused the rebel leader of attempting a coup in December 2013.

The conflict soon turned into an all-out war between the army and defectors, with the violence taking on an ethnic dimension that pitted the president’s tribe against Machar's.

South Sudan gained independence in July 2011 after its people overwhelmingly voted in a referendum for a split from the North.

The government in Juba is grappling with rampant corruption, unrest and conflict in the deeply impoverished but oil-rich nation left devastated by decades of war.