Sudan accused Israel on Wednesday of being behind an air strike against a car driving along the coast the night before, in a case believed to involve weapons smuggling to militants in Gaza.
Sudanese Foreign Minister Ali Ahmed Karti said the attack in the Port Sudan area, which killed two, was “a flagrant Israeli aggression.” He told journalists following his meeting with the US special envoy to Sudan, Princeton Lyman, that Israel was trying to make Sudan look like a sponsor of terror to keep it from being removed from the US terrorism list.
Israel had no comment. While it never comments on covert operations, its officials have said Sudan is a frequent transit point for illicit weapons headed to Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip.
Israeli defense analyst Alon Ben-David said if it was an Israeli strike, it would most likely have been against weapons smugglers supplying Hamas.
“Now you can assume that if indeed Israel committed the strike and sent its fighter aircraft 1,500 kilometers away, that was a very high-value target,” he said.
The deputy governor of Port Sudan state, Sirul Khatim Kunna, told the Sudan Media Center that an investigation was underway into the circumstances behind the attack, but it appears that a missile hit the car.
There were apparently four cars in the convoy, according to the independent daily Al-Rai Al-Am, but only one was targeted. The attack caused panic in Port Sudan, which is the site of the country’s main oil export terminal, the paper said.
Meanwhile, 13 people have been killed in clashes in south Sudan’s troubled Mvolo County area, the latest in a wave of violence between rival ethnic groups that has forced 34,000 to flee their homes, officials said yesterday.
“There was more fighting in Mvolo County between communities in which 13 people were killed,” said Joseph Bakasoro, the governor of Western Equatoria state, who said the clashes took place on Tuesday.
Fighting along the border between Western Equatoria and Lakes first broke out in February. A second wave of clashes erupted in the middle of last month after a motorcycle driver was killed in an ambush, sparking tit-for-tat reprisal raids.
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