Sudan’s poor air defense and counter-terrorism gimmick exposed

By Steve Paterno

December 19, 2010 — In a show of air power and act of provocations, Khartoum regime is currently carrying out intermittent air raids into South Sudan territory. These raids come a head of a referendum vote—the exercise, which many believe will result into independence of South Sudan. Over the years, Khartoum air force is notoriously known for razing scores of villages across the Darfur region and for targeting civilians in South Sudan. Of recent, Khartoum is boasting about its air power superiority. The flow of petrodollar allows Khartoum to acquire into its fleet new generations of Chinese and Russian made jet fighters and attack helicopters. With the assistance of China and Russia, Khartoum is able to manufacture first ever made in Sudan aircraft in 2009. Abdel-Rahim Mohamed Hussein, Khartoum’s minister of defense has publicly revealed that the regime even developed unmanned surveillance planes.

However, a recently released Wikileaks secret cable from US embassy in Khartoum revealed that in early 2009, after mysterious air attacks in Sudan, officials in Khartoum were scratching their heads, not just because they couldn’t stop the attacks, but the regime that pride itself so much of air power superiority could not even figure out who attacked them—a clearly embarrassing defeat. As soon as the attacks took place, the officials did not know where to start from. Ambassador Nasreddin Wali who headed the Americas department in foreign ministry was authorized to summon Alberto Fernandez, who was then the US charge d’affaires in Sudan. Ambassador Wali told Fernandez that Sudan was attacked and Khartoum “assumed” that the bombing was carried out by US. The reason they decided to accuse America was because days before, the US approached them about information related to weapons shipment from Iran to Gaza through Sudan, something Khartoum denied.

Nevertheless, what really happened incriminates Khartoum into a ring of terrorist smugglers and exposes it as a puppet of the nuclear rogued Iran. By then, Egypt, which had influence over Sudan was already growing worried, due to increase Iranian involvement with Khartoum. Egypt, like most of its Arab counterparts, actually views Iran as a strategic threat. However, with increasing Iranian influence over Khartoum as well as in Gaza with Hamas and in Lebanon with Hizballah, the threat becomes more immediate that Egypt must deal with. To the Egyptian government, the Hamas and Hizballah are no different than its archenemy, the Muslim Brotherhood. Egypt also worried about Iranian activities in Sudan and has since been keeping its eye on Khartoum-Tehran cozy relationship.

Just prior to the mysterious air attacks on Sudan, intelligence report suggested that an Iranian agent with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps traveled to Sudan to coordinate smuggling of weapons through Sudan, Egypt and finally into Gaza. The weapons were eventually shipped into Port Sudan. The shipment were then loaded into vehicles and accompanied by both Sudanese and Iranian crews for a final destination to Gaza. As the convey headed out of the port, the Israeli jet fighters quickly scrambled into air, about a hundred miles deep into Sudanese territory. On a two-run strike, the F-16s dropped the bombs right on target. The F-15s hovered above in anticipation of any hostile aircraft. Then, the drones passed over the burning trucks to the point of filming smoldering bodies, where it was determined that the vehicles were partially destroyed. Therefore, a second attack was carried out and all the trucks were burned into ashes and the crews obliterated.

It is interesting that during the raid, Khartoum could not even respond, detect or comprehend the nature of the attacks. Khartoum’s glorified air power superiority is proven to be a no match in this Israeli raid. Khartoum, with all its aircraft, can only manage to target Sudanese civilians in places like Darfur and South Sudan. Nonetheless, Khartoum cannot be able to defend itself from outside air aggression. So much air superiority pride for the regime that kills its own civilians.

It is also interesting to note that the much publicized Khartoum’s counter-terrorism effort is just a gimmick, because Khartoum cannot claim that it is working with the West to fight terrorists and at the same time collaborating with Iran to supply terrorists with weapons for killing Westerners. Egypt which shares heritage and borders with Sudan, doubts very much Khartoum’s effort to fight terrorists. In this case, Egypt is even willing to work with Yehudin (Jews) to strike Sudan. Now, where does this leaves the US, which claims that Khartoum is a strategic alley on war on terrorism. Perhaps it is a ripe time for US to reevaluate and reassess its counter-terrorism strategy with the double dealer Khartoum.