Sudanese president says Israel behind airstrike on convoy

April 26, 2009 (KHARTOUM) — The Sudanese president Omer Hassan Al-Bashir acknowledged for the first time that Israel may be behind the attack on a suspected arms convoy in the Eastern of the country that was uncovered by US officials last month.

Al-Bashir in an interview with the Qatar based Al-Jazeera TV said that the government’s initial reports indicated that it was US warplanes carried out the airstrike.

However after contacting the Americans they assured Khartoum that they were not behind the aerial bombardment.

According to a ‘TIME’ magazine report last month an informant told Israel’s foreign intelligence agency (Mossad) earlier this year that Iran was planning a major delivery of a substantial amount of arms and explosives to Gaza including anti-tank rockets and Fajir rockets with a 25 mile range and a 45 kg warhead.

The Israelis pulled together a plan involving drones, fighter jets and naval vessels to bomb the suspected arms convoy. The number of casualties remain unknown thought some figures put the death toll at 29 people.

In the interview Bashir said that one person survived the attack but he did not elaborate.

This week anonymous sources in Khartoum told the Egyptian Al-Osbo’o newspaper that Israel drowned an Iranian vessel that carried weapons bound to Gaza last week.

There has been conflicting reports on the number of strikes launched by Israeli planes since January as some said that multiple airstrikes took place.

(ST)