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1. U.S. OFFICIALS CONFIRM ISRAEL AIR FORCE
BOMBED SUDAN CONVOY
1. U.S. OFFICIALS CONFIRM ISRAEL AIR FORCE BOMBED SUDAN
CONVOY
by Gil Ronen
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.
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