Sudanese army admits to raid near coastal city, contacts Egypt

March 26, 2009 (KHARTOUM) —The Sudanese army issued a statement today saying it was aware of an air strike launched by allegedly Israeli warplanes when it happened last January.

The spokesperson of Sudan’s military Osman Al-Agbash said that the army “took all necessary procedures and contacted parties of concern with this issue”.

The London based Al-Sharq Al-Awsat newspaper quoted the military spokesperson as saying that they consulted with the Egyptians and other parties through the foreign ministry.

Asked why the incident was not made public when it occurred, Al-Agbash said that “the government and specialized agencies determine the right time for that [disclosure]”.

However it appeared that Khartoum was hesitant to confirm the report after an ex-rebel leader from Eastern Sudan unexpectedly revealed it in a press conference this week.

The Los Angeles Times said that the news was not reported in the country’s newspapers, suggesting the government might be embarrassed to acknowledge that its sovereignty and air space could be violated so easily.

The Sudanese state minister for highways Mabrouk Mubarak Saleem had told reporters on Monday that “major power bombed small trucks carrying arms burring all of them”.

“It killed Sudanese, Eritreans and Ethiopians [passengers] and injured others” Saleem said and pointed figures at the US.

But CBS news quoting unidentified US officials yesterday disputed the report about US involvement in the operation.

CBS News national security correspondent who covers the Pentagon was told by those officials that “Israeli aircraft carried out the attack”.

“Israeli intelligence is said to have discovered that weapons were being trucked through Sudan, heading north toward Egypt, whereupon they would cross the Sinai Desert and be smuggled into Hamas-held territory in Gaza” the officials said.

Today another unidentified senior figure from east Sudan told Reuters that his colleagues spoke to a survivor of the raid.

“There was an Ethiopian fellow, a mechanic. He was the only one who survived. He said they came in two planes. They passed over them then came back and they shot the cars. He couldn’t tell the nationality of the aircraft … The aircraft destroyed the vehicles. There were four or five vehicles” he said.

The politician added that the route, in a desert region northwest of Port Sudan on the Red Sea coast, was regularly used by groups smuggling weapons into Egypt.

“Everyone knows they are smuggling weapons to the southern part of Egypt” he said.

But Saleem today told the Qatar based Al-Jazeera TV channel that 800 people were killed in the attack including 200 Sudanese and the remaining 600 were Somalis and Eritreans.

The Sudanese official said that there were two raids conducted, one on January 27th and the second on February 11th. He also retracted his earlier version on the convoy saying it was engaging in human trafficking and not arms smuggling saying that extreme poverty in the region is the biggest driver of this activity.

Israel has declined to confirm or deny the reports on its involvement but its outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said that the government is “operating in every area in which terrorist infrastructures can be struck”.

“We are operating in locations near and far and attack in a way that strengthens and increases deterrence…..there is no point in elaborating. Everyone can use their imagination. Whoever needs to know, knows” he added.

His statements were taken by observers as a confirmation of the role played by Israel played in the bombing.

Israeli officials in the past have said that arms are funneled into Sudan and then to Sinai, where they pass through the tunnels into Gaza.

They also said Iran is the main supplier of weapons to the Islamic militant group Hamas which controls the Gaza strip.

But Hamas representative in Lebanon Osama Hamdan denied any connection to the convoy.

The US signed an agreement with Israel last January that calls for an international effort to stem the flow of weaponry and explosives to complement those of Egypt.

American and Israeli diplomats said at the time the agreement includes intelligence coordination to prevent arms from Iran from entering Gaza, maritime efforts to identify ships carrying weaponry, and the sharing of US and European technologies to discover and prevent the use of weapons-smuggling tunnels.

(ST)