Report: IAF struck arms convoy in Sudan in January

[sharonbn]

Ynet
Published: 03.26.09, 07:36 / Israel News

Israeli planes struck in January a convoy of trucks in Sudan that was headed for Egypt and carrying weapons apparently meant for the Gaza Strip, the CBS television network reported Thursday.

According to the report 17 trucks had been bombed and 39 people had been killed in the strike.

The report was not confirmed by Israel.

The CBS report was based on information provided to Pentagon reporter David Martin by his sources, and published on the blog of the network's Washington-based correspondent Dan Raviv.

According to another report, in the SudanTribune.com website, Israel intelligence has tracked down the convoy northwest of the city of Port Sudan, as it was moving north, and the bombing took place near Mount al-Sha’anoon.

The CBS report also mentions an agreement signed between Israel and the US following Operation Cast Lead in Gaza that calls for increased international efforts to curb weapon smuggling into Hamas-led Gaza.

"American and Israeli diplomats said the (January) 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," the report said, quoting SudnaTribune.com.

The Sudanese website added that the attack was "an embarrassment" to the local government, which discussed the matter with Cairo in order to gather more information and formulate a response.

One government official, the state Minister for Highways Mabrouk Mubarak Saleem said following the strike: "A major power bombed small trucks carrying arms – burning all of them. It killed Sudanese, Eritreans, and Ethiopians and injured others."

In the beginning of the week Egyptian media reported that American aircraft bombarded a convoy suspected of carrying weapons to Gaza.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7...692507,00.html

[Toadstool46]

Good for them...keep up the good work and fly straight...

[Mediocrates]

Not 'apparently'. It was, confirmed by Sudan.

[Kenneth]

Mentioned on the BBC news late last night.

[Mediocrates]

And confirmed by the US. I mean sold down the river by the US......

[Toadstool46]

Sold down the river for sure. Just like Jacob by his brothers... Just like that historical event this will end with the US begging for forgiveness from Israel.

History always repeats itself.

[Kenneth]

"History always repeats itself."

If that's true I want a T-Rex.

[Mediocrates]

U.S. Officials Confirm Israel Air Force Bombed Sudan Convoy


by Gil Ronen

(IsraelNN.com) United States officials have confirmed that Israel Air Force warplanes bombed a truck convoy in Sudan in January. The trucks were carrying arms that would be smuggled into Gaza for use against Israel, the officials said, according to a report in the New York Times. Israel has refused to confirm or deny the attack, but Prime Minister Ehud Olmert made a statement, after the reports of the attack surfaced, that Israel has been striking at terror targets “near and far,” and warned enemies, “there is no place that Israel can't reach.”

Israel strikes terrorists “in the north and in the south... There's no need to mention details; people can use their imaginations,” Olmert said.
The American officials said Israel hit the convoy in order to prevent weapons from reaching Gaza during Operation Cast Lead. The Times describes the sources as two American officials “who are privy to classified intelligence assessments.” The sources said that Iran had been involved in the effort to smuggle weapons to Gaza. According to intelligence reports, they added, an agent for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards was in Sudan, coordinating the smuggling operation. Iran funds, arms and trains two proxy armies on Israel’s borders: Hizbullah in the north and Hamas in the south.

Payback for International Court?
Sudanese officials made news of the strike public on Thursday, when they claimed that “American fighters” bombed a convoy of trucks in eastern Sudan. According to the Times, there was a possibility that the reason Sudan came out with the accusation now, two months after the alleged attack, was that it was reacting to a decision by the International Criminal Court to issue a warrant for the arrest of Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, on war-crimes charges.

While other accounts said the death toll was fewer than 40, a Sudanese spokesman claimed that “more than 100 people” had been killed in the air raid, which he termed “a genocide, committed by U.S. forces.” When asked how he knew the attackers were American, the spokesman said: “We don’t differentiate between the U.S. and Israel. They are all one.” A spokesman for the United States Africa Command said U.S. forces had not attacked in Sudan. “The U.S. military has not conducted any airstrikes, fired any missiles or undertaken any combat operations in or around Sudan since October 2008, when U.S. Africa Command formally became responsible for U.S. military action in Africa,” he said.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/130642

[Toadstool46]

"History always repeats itself."

If that's true I want a T-Rex.

Come now...what would ya feed it?

[Mediocrates]

Come now...what would ya feed it?

People. I would feed mine people.

[Kenneth]

Chinese Fantan fighter-jet mechanics and the occasional Janjaweed for roughage.

[Toadstool46]

I stand corrected. There is no way it would go hungry.