KHARTOUM, (Reuters) – Sudan said yesterday that an Israeli air strike had caused the huge explosion and fire at an arms factory in Khartoum that killed two people, but Israel’s defence minister declined to comment.
Sudan, which analysts say is used as an arms-smuggling route to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip via neighbouring Egypt, has blamed Israel for such strikes in the past, but Israel has either refused to comment or said it neither admitted or denied involvement.
Asked by Israel’s Channel Two News about Sudan’s accusations, Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak said: “There is nothing I can say about this subject.”
A huge fire broke out late on Tuesday at the Yarmouk arms factory in the south of the capital which was rocked by several explosions, witnesses said. Firefighters took more than two hours to extinguish the fire at Sudan’s main factory for ammunition and small arms.
“Four military planes attacked the Yarmouk plant … We believe that Israel is behind it,” Information Minister Ahmed Belal Osman told reporters, adding that the planes appeared to approach the site from the east.
“Sudan reserves the right to strike back at Israel,” he said, adding that two citizens had been killed and the plant had been partially destroyed. Another person was seriously injured, he said.
Around 300 people gathered at the courtyard of a government building where the Sudanese cabinet was in an emergency meeting, shouting “Death to Israel” and “Remove Israel from the map.” “Israel is a country of injustice that needs to be deterred,” Vice President Ali Osman Taha, standing next to President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, told the crowd. “This attack only strengthens our firmness.”
The governor of Khartoum state initially had ruled out any “external” cause for the blast but officials later showed journalists a video from the vast site. A huge crater could be seen next to two destroyed buildings and what appeared to be a rocket lying on the ground.
Osman said an analysis of rocket debris and other material had shown that the attack was engineered by Israel, which Sudan views as an enemy.
Sudan’s U.N. Ambassador Daffa-Alla Elhag Ali Osman called on the U.N. Security Council to condemn the attack “because it is a blatant violation of the concept of peace and security.”
