CounterterrorismIsraeli strikes kill WMD-related Hamas operatives in Sudanese port
Sudan accused Israel of killing two men in the port city of Port Sudan; Israel declined to comment on the accusations; sources say the target was the Hamas representative in Sudan in charge of the vast Iranian weapons smuggling enterprise for the Gaza Strip via Egypt; it appears Israel acted after information emerged that Iran purchased a large quantity of chemical munitions from anti-Gaddafi rebels; the rebels found the WMDs in Libyan military bases abandoned by the Libyan military; Iran was making arrangements to have the munitions delivered to Hamas and Hezbollah to be used against Israel; Israel’s action is reminiscent of the January 2009 attack on a convoy of arms smugglers in Sudan, near the Egyptian border; the strike, which killed 119 people, was aimed to prevent an Iranian weapons shipment from reaching Hamas; in the past two years Israeli aircraft and naval units have been operating against smuggling ships in the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea; the ships carry Iranian arms to Hamas
Israeli reaches far to defend itself // Source: weaselzippers.us
When it comes to fighting terrorists, Israel has long arms. Here is the latest episode.
Sudan’s Foreign Minister Ali Karti on Wednesday accused Israel of carrying out a strike on a car near Port Sudan that killed two people.
Sudanese police have said a missile struck the car near the port city on Tuesday. A state government official said the strike was carried out by a foreign aircraft that flew in from the Red Sea. Israel’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor declined to comment on the accusation.
Haaretz reports that two people were killed in an attack on a car near Port Sudan on Tuesday. Witnesses at the scene near the airport at Sudan’s main port city said the small car was destroyed and the two charred bodies of its passengers could be seen.
Debka reports that the attack targeted the Hamas representative in Sudan in charge of the vast Iranian weapons smuggling enterprise for the Gaza Strip via Egypt and the Suez Canal. His latest task was to organize the transfer to Port Sudan of a shipment of mustard and nerve gas purchased by Hamas and Hezbollah representatives with Tehran’s help from Libyan rebels in Benghazi.
“This is absolutely an Israeli attack,” Karti told reporters. He said Israel undertook the attack in order to scupper Sudan’s chances of being removed from a U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism.
One of the two people killed in the strike was a Sudanese citizen who had no ties to Islamists or the government, he said.
Sudan is on a U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism, but Washington this year initiated the process to remove it from that list after a peaceful January referendum in which the country’s south voted to secede.
“A missile from an unknown source probably bombed the car,” police spokesman Ahmed Al-Tahmi told Reuters on Tuesday. He earlier told local radio the missile had likely been fired from the Red Sea.
The Sudanese Media Centre, a news agency linked to Sudan’s state security apparatus, and the speaker of the Red Sea state parliament, Ahmed Tahir, said an unidentified aircraft had flown into Sudanese air space to bomb the car.
The plane came in from the Red Sea and flew back after the bombing, Tahir said. The Sudanese Media Centre said the army responded with missiles that the foreign plane managed to evade.
“We heard three loud explosions,” a source at Port Sudan airport told Reuters. “We went outside to see what was happening and eye witnesses told us they saw two helicopters which looked liked Apaches flying past.”
This is not the first time mystery has surrounded a strike in Sudan’s eastern Red Sea state.
In January 2009, a convoy of arms smugglers was hit by unidentified aircraft in Sudan’s eastern Red Sea state according to Sudanese authorities, a strike that some reports said may have been carried out by Israel to stop weapons that most probably came from Iran and were bound for Gaza (see “Sudan attack demonstrates new U.S.-Israel counter-Iran policy,” 26 March 2009 HSNW; and “Sudan attack: update,” 1 April 2009 HSNW).
A total of 119 people were killed in that strike near Sudan’s border with Egypt, according to state media.
Haaretz notes that following the 2009 attack, there were reports that Israeli aircraft were operating against smuggling ships intending on transferring weapons to Hamas in Gaza.
The area of Sudan serves as a smuggling area for weapons provided by Iran, as well as weapons purchased in the black markets of Yemen, Somalia, and Eritrea.
U.S. and Israeli officials typically refuse to comment on the covert campaign — any covert campaign — against Iran and its regional agents, Hezbollah and Hamas. We note, however, a speech the then-Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert gave on 26 March 2009 in an academic gathering in Herzlyia, outside Tel Aviv. We do not know whether he was referring — obliquely — to the attacks on Iran’s nuclear weapons infrastructure or to the efforts to contain Iran’s influence in the Middle East by preventing it from arming Hamas and Hezbollah. Perhaps he was referring to both efforts.
He warned Israel’s adversaries that Israeli forces, in defending the country, were operating “near and far.”
We are operating in every area in which terrorist infrastructures can be struck. We are operating in locations near and far and attack in a way that strengthens and increases deterrence. It is true in the north and in the south … there is no point in elaborating. Everyone can use their imagination. Whoever needs to know, knows.
