'Israel assassinates Hamas weapons smuggler in Sudan'
Israel assassinated a senior Hamas weapons smuggler late Tuesday night when it bombed a rental car in Sudan, the Al Arabiya news station reported on Wednesday shedding some light on the mysterious late night air strike a day earlier.
The station did not identify the two men who were killed in the strike but said that one of them was a Sudanese national and that the other was from an Arab country. Some reports have claimed that he was a senior Hamas operative responsible for smuggling weapons from Iran, Syria and Lebanon to the Gaza Strip.
Sudan is a known stop on the smuggling route from Iran to the Gaza Strip. In 2009, on the sidelines of Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip, Israel Air Force aircraft reportedly bombed a convoy of trucks carrying weaponry and traveling through the Sudanese desert on its way to the Gaza Strip.
Ships reportedly sail from the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas, controlled by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps and dock at an Iranian-controlled port in Sudan. There, the weaponry is then unloaded onto the back of trucks which travel up into Egypt, through the Sinai Peninsula, eventually unloading their cargo along the border with the Gaza Strip.
According to the Sudanese, an aircraft approached Sudan from the Red Sea and bombed the rental car about 14 kilometers south of Port Sudan. The two men had reportedly just landed in Sudan an hour earlier.
Sudan's Foreign Minister Ali Karti on Wednesday accused Israel of carrying out an attack on Tuesday near Port Sudan that killed two people and said Khartoum reserved the right to react to the aggression.
"This is absolutely an Israeli attack," he told reporters.
He said Israel undertook the attack in order to scupper Sudan's chances of being removed from a US list of state sponsors of terrorism.
The Israeli government declined to comment.
Sudanese officials have offered different versions on how the strike was carried out. Police say a missile struck the car near the port city, but a state government official blamed the bombing on a foreign aircraft that flew in from the Red Sea.
Sudan is on a US 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.
Israel has been operating persistently against the Iranian smuggling mechanism since Operation Cast Lead. In November 2009, the Navy seized the Francop cargo ship which was transporting weaponry to Hezbollah in last month seized the Victoria which was shipping weaponry to Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Might i add: Good job to our boys in the air.
Israel assassinated a senior Hamas weapons smuggler late Tuesday night when it bombed a rental car in Sudan, the Al Arabiya news station reported on Wednesday shedding some light on the mysterious late night air strike a day earlier.
The station did not identify the two men who were killed in the strike but said that one of them was a Sudanese national and that the other was from an Arab country. Some reports have claimed that he was a senior Hamas operative responsible for smuggling weapons from Iran, Syria and Lebanon to the Gaza Strip.
Sudan is a known stop on the smuggling route from Iran to the Gaza Strip. In 2009, on the sidelines of Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip, Israel Air Force aircraft reportedly bombed a convoy of trucks carrying weaponry and traveling through the Sudanese desert on its way to the Gaza Strip.
Ships reportedly sail from the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas, controlled by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps and dock at an Iranian-controlled port in Sudan. There, the weaponry is then unloaded onto the back of trucks which travel up into Egypt, through the Sinai Peninsula, eventually unloading their cargo along the border with the Gaza Strip.
According to the Sudanese, an aircraft approached Sudan from the Red Sea and bombed the rental car about 14 kilometers south of Port Sudan. The two men had reportedly just landed in Sudan an hour earlier.
Sudan's Foreign Minister Ali Karti on Wednesday accused Israel of carrying out an attack on Tuesday near Port Sudan that killed two people and said Khartoum reserved the right to react to the aggression.
"This is absolutely an Israeli attack," he told reporters.
He said Israel undertook the attack in order to scupper Sudan's chances of being removed from a US list of state sponsors of terrorism.
The Israeli government declined to comment.
Sudanese officials have offered different versions on how the strike was carried out. Police say a missile struck the car near the port city, but a state government official blamed the bombing on a foreign aircraft that flew in from the Red Sea.
Sudan is on a US 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.
Israel has been operating persistently against the Iranian smuggling mechanism since Operation Cast Lead. In November 2009, the Navy seized the Francop cargo ship which was transporting weaponry to Hezbollah in last month seized the Victoria which was shipping weaponry to Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Might i add: Good job to our boys in the air.
how i wish our politicians had the balls to seek out any target the arms suppliers of naxals in a similar manner.....
