Sudan: Air strike on car kills two in Port Sudan

[Someoneforyou]

Sudan: Air strike kills two in Port Sudan
6 april 2011

A "foreign" aircraft has destroyed a car near Sudan's city of Port Sudan on the Red Sea coast, killing its two passengers, local officials say.

Police say a missile probably came from the direction of the Red Sea. Some sources suggest two helicopters could have been involved.

The car, said to be a Hyundai Sonata, was about 15km (nine miles) south of Port Sudan at the time.

There was no immediate word on the identity of the two victims.

Security forces have now sealed off the area, reports say.

So far no-one has claimed to have carried out the attack.

"We heard three loud explosions," a source at Port Sudan airport told Reuters news agency.

"Eyewitnesses told us they saw two helicopters which looked liked Apaches flying past."

The car had been travelling into the city from the airport, one Sudanese official said.

Gaza connection?

In 2009 the Sudanese authorities said a convoy of arms smugglers was hit by unidentified aircraft in Sudan's eastern Red Sea state.

There was speculation at the time that the strike may have been carried out by Israel to stop weapons bound for Gaza.

The then Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, appeared to give credence to an Israeli hand in that attack, saying "we operate everywhere where we can hit terror infrastructure - in close places and in places further away".

Israel has not commented on the latest incident.

The BBC's James Copnall, in the Sudanese capital, says Hamas, the group which controls the Gaza Strip, is on good terms with Khartoum.

There has been an uneasy peace in eastern Sudan for several years, following one of Sudan's many civil wars.

But the region is very underdeveloped even by Sudanese standards, and there are fears about increased illegal activity there, our correspondent says.

Source: BBC News

 

[Someoneforyou]

Sudan accuses Israel of strike near Port Sudan
6 april 2011

KHARTOUM, Sudan --Sudan's Foreign Minister Ali Ahmad Karti accused Israel Wednesday of an air strike a day earlier on a car on Sudan's Red Sea coast that killed two people.

"From yesterday [Tuesday], we have indications that the attack was carried out by Israel. We are absolutely sure of this," Karti told a news conference in Khartoum.

The minister said he didn't know the reason for the attack, but that in recent days "there have been allegations from Israel that Sudan is supporting some Islamic groups."

"This is not true. When Israel makes these allegations, it is trying to justify what it did yesterday."
In response to a question, Karti said he didn't know the identities of the people who had been killed, but said they were Sudanese citizens traveling from the airport.

Source: AFP

 

[sandeepdg]

Good going, Israel. Keep hitting them everywhere you can. That's the only way to contain them.

 

[Nonynon]

Thx

Was just about to open a familier thread myself.

 

[Tshering22]

Thx

Was just about to open a familier thread myself.

Gotta give it to you guys. AMAZING! How do you manage to put in so much dedication and devotion to your country? Can we have a couple of Israeli advisors to our assholes in the so-called government of India? Please!!

 

[Someoneforyou]

Report: Hamas arms trafficker killed in air strike in Sudan
6 april 2011

Sudan Foreign Minister: "This is absolutely an Israeli attack".

Sudan calls missile strike on main port city 'absolutely an Israeli strike', says it reserves the right to react; Israel declines to comment.

An Islamist responsible for supplying weapons to Hamas was apparently among the two people killed in a missile strike near the main port city of Sudan this week, the Al-Arabiya news network reported on Wednesday citing various sources.

Sudan accused Israel of launching the missile strike, in an attack that raised concerns about Khartoum's ability to stop arms trafficking across its remote east.

Analysts say weapons are smuggled to Hamas-run Gaza through desert routes in Sudan's east, and reports said Israel was behind an air strike on a convoy of suspected arms smugglers in the region in 2009. Israel has never admitted or denied this.

"This is absolutely an Israeli attack," Foreign Minister Ali Karti told reporters on the strike that demolished a car and killed its two passengers near Port Sudan on Tuesday. "Sudan reserves its right to react."

One of the two people killed in the strike was a Sudanese citizen who had no ties to Islamists or the government and it was not clear why his car was targeted, he said. He did not provide any details about the second person killed.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor declined to comment on the accusation.

The strike comes at a difficult moment for Khartoum, which is hoping to get off the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism to attract investment and curb discontent over soaring prices and the secession of its oil-producing south.

Karti accused Israel, which Khartoum considers an enemy state, of undertaking the attack in a bid to scupper Sudan's chances of being removed from the U.S. terror list and portray Sudan negatively.

Osman Merghani, editor-in-chief of the independent al-Tayyar paper in Khartoum, said the strike appeared to be one Israel had the capability to execute and that the target was likely to be a weapons trafficker for Hamas who used Sudan's east.

"It's very serious for the government because now Sudan is getting into the domain of the 'terror' region," he said, referring to neighboring states.

"They have to get some help from within the [Middle East] region to stop this because if they get help from outside the region they could themselves be targeted by the terrorists," Merghani said.

Sudanese police say a missile struck the car near the port city and a state government official said the attack came from a foreign aircraft that flew in from the Red Sea.

This is the second time in two years that blame has been put on Israel as the likely power behind an attack in the area.

Sudanese officials in 2009 said unknown aircraft had killed scores in a strike on a convoy of suspected arms smugglers on a remote road in the east, which some reports said may have been carried out by Israel to stop weapons bound for Gaza.

Hamas obtains its weapons via Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, bringing them in through tunnels. Sudan denies allowing illegal weapon shipments across its territory.

Washington this year initiated the process to remove Sudan from the state sponsors of terror list after a peaceful January referendum for southern secession, but has stressed Khartoum must meet all criteria under U.S. law before it is dropped.

Karti's comments on the strike came minutes after he held a meeting with the new U.S. special envoy to Sudan, Princeton Lyman, who said Washington was working towards normalization of relations between the two countries.

Sudan is also under U.S. sanctions, which local businesses and residents say has heaped additional burdens on a people already weighed down by decades of conflict.

The remains of the car hit by a missile

Source: Reuters

 

[pmaitra]

Were the Israelis Behind the 'Mystery' Air Strike in Sudan?

Were the Israelis Behind the 'Mystery' Air Strike in Sudan?

Posted by Karl Vick Wednesday, April 6, 2011 at 11:10 am
Time Magazine

About ten hours before a warplane roared down the Red Sea, crossed into Sudanese airspace and let fly a missile at a sedan, killing both of the people inside, Maj. Gen. (ret.) Amos Gilad offered a piece of advice about secret military actions to audience of diplomats and journalists in a Jerusalem hotel.

"Never boast," Gilad said. "Be humble. Be modest. Do it, what you have to do. Don't talk.''

The topic was Iran's nuclear ambitions, and what Israel might do military to impede them. As director general of political-military affairs for Israel's defense ministry, Gilad may be the person in Israel in the best position to answer, but he demurred on the grounds that saying things in public tended to impede the ability to do them. So it is that when asked about the Stuxnet worm that wreaked havoc with Iran's centrifuges at the Natanz nuclear facility, or the assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists on their way to the office, Israeli officials limit themselves to a knowing smile and a "no comment."

And indeed the Israel Defense Force had nothing to say on Wednesday about the mysterious air strike just north of Port Sudan late Tuesday evening. But a senior military official privately confirmed the obvious. "It's not our first time there," the official told TIME, referring to a January 2009 airstrike that demolished an entire convoy near the Egyptian border, killing dozens. Both attacks took place on the preferred route for smuggling guns, missiles and mortars to the Gaza Strip and Hamas, the militant Islamist group that governs it. The route begins in Iran, a major sponsor of Hamas, runs by sea around the Arabian Peninsula to Port Sudan, then overland across the vast Sinai Desert. Somewhere along the way, according to a Western official speaking on condition of anonymity, an electronic device was attached to the shipment. Its signal guided the missile into the the vehicle as it moved north from the port Tuesday night. News reports quoted witnesses as hearing multiple explosions; secondary blasts would likely be the unidentified munition inside the car.

The Sinai has never been easily policed by Egyptian authorities,and has been even more wide-open since the fall of President Hosni Mubarak. (When a hierarchy slackens, the periphery loosens the most.) But Gilad signaled that things are tightening up, saying the military government that succeeded Mubarak is working closely with Israel on Sinai.

"We have intensive dialogue with Egyptian authorities and they are doing their best to rise to the challenges," he said. Indeed Gilad was downright ebullient about the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, referring admiringly to its "sophisticated use of power" and singling out Field Marshal Mohamad Hussain Tantawi, a close adviser to Mubarak. Israel's quite public worries about the course Egypt might take after Tahrir Square seemed a thing of the past, at least for now. "I must say I'm very much impressed by the stability of the Supreme Council," Gilad said. "I think they embody the best of Egypt."

Sudan may differ. To reach its territory, Israeli aircraft would have needed overflight permission from either Saudi Arabia or Egypt. Both border the Red Sea south of Israel, and neither is a fan of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Long experience with Egyptian meddling predisposes Khartoum to blame Cairo for a great deal, though on Wednesday its foreign minister was naming only Israel.
"This is absolutely an Israeli attack," Sudan's Foreign Minister Ali Karti told reporters. He found in the air strike evidence of a plot to keep Sudan on the State Department's list of countries that support terror.

Back in Jerusalem, before any of this had happened, the Israeli defense official offered assurances that Egypt remained at the forefront of the fight against Iran. Never mind that a pair of Iranian warships were permitted to pass through the Suez in the days after Mubarak fell. The message was that his successors have asserted control.
"Always," the general said, "I've found with them a deep understanding of the real nature of Iran."

-- with reporting by Aaron J. Klein

Read more: http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/20...he-mystery-air-strike-in-sudan/#ixzz1Im2ZnKr1

 

[Nonynon]

Gotta give it to you guys. AMAZING! How do you manage to put in so much dedication and devotion to your country? Can we have a couple of Israeli advisors to our assholes in the so-called government of India? Please!!

Thank you Its good to have a story like this come out once in a while so that the terrorists will be afraid wherever they are. The devotion to protect ourselves i something we learned the hard way but that's how we survived the middle east.