Early Wednesday morning, an explosion hit the Yarmouk Military
Industrial Complex in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, killing at least
two people and partially destroying the plant. Reports and Israeli
statements strongly suggest that the explosion was caused by an Israeli
air strike, carried out in violation of international law. Israel and
Sudan are not at war.
Sudanese information minister Ahmed Belal
Osman told reporters that “four military planes attacked the Yarmouk
plant,” and that the Sudanese government believes “that Israel is behind
it.” He explained that “the planes had appeared to approach the site
from the east,” and that an analysis of rocket debris and other material
had shown that Israel was behind the attack. He added that Khartoum was
now “certain” of this fact.
Eyewitness accounts reported by news
agency AFP confirmed the Sudanese government’s statements that the
explosion was caused by an air strike. Residents living close to the
Yarmouk factory told reporters that they saw aircraft and missiles
flying overhead shortly before the plant exploded in flames.
Abelgadir
Mohamed, 31, a resident of the working class area in which the factory
is located, described the havoc after a loud roar woke him and his
brother around midnight. “At first we thought it was more than one
plane. Then we thought it was a plane crashing because of how sharp the
sound was,” he explained. “Then we saw a flash of light, and after it
came a really loud sound. It was an explosion.”
“It was a double
whammy,” he continued, “the explosion at the factory and then the
ammunition flying into the neighborhood. The ground shook. Some homes
were badly damaged. The walls of our home cracked, so we left our house
to sleep elsewhere. When we came back this morning, our beds and
furniture were covered in ashes.”
The Israeli government did not
officially take responsibility for the air strike. Asked by Israeli
television Channel 2 about Sudan’s accusations, Israeli defence minister
Ehud Barak said, “There is nothing I can say about this subject.”
Other
statements made by high-ranking Israeli officials suggest, however,
that the air strike was carried out by the Israeli Air Force.
Amos
Gilad—director of policy and political-military affairs at the Israeli
Defence Ministry and a former top official of Israel’s military
intelligence organisation, Aman—accused Sudan of “assisting terrorism”
on Army Radio on Thursday.
“Sudan is a dangerous terrorist state.
To know exactly what happened [there], it will take some time to
understand,” he said. Asked whether Israel was involved in the attack,
Gilad refused to reply directly, but stressed that the Israeli Air Force
was “one of the most prestigious in the world, a fact which had been
proved many times in the past.”
Such comments strongly suggest
that Israel’s main ally, the United States, was involved in the strike.
London-based Arabic newspaper Al-Hayat reported that the US
embassy in Khartoum closed its doors on Wednesday morning, before the
Sudanese government blamed Israel for the attack. Sources in the
Sudanese capital speculated that Washington knew that the strike was
carried out by Israel and closed its embassy out of fear that it could
be attacked.
Last month, the US embassy in Khartoum was beset by
angry protesters amid demonstrations against US imperialism throughout
the Middle East and Africa, during which numerous US embassies were
attacked.
Over the years, the US and Israel have carried out
several strikes against Sudan. In August 1998, US cruise missiles were
fired at the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory in northern Khartoum.
Washington claimed that the factory was producing chemical weapons, but
when reporters arrived on the scene, it turned out that the factory in
fact only produced medicine.
In January 2009, a truck convoy was
attacked in the Northern Sudanese city of Port Sudan, killing 39 people
and destroying 17 trucks. Official sources in Washington confirmed that
Israel was behind the attack, claiming that the convoy was carrying
weapons for Hamas. At the time of the attack, Israel was conducting a
brutal war against the impoverished Gaza Strip, destroying much of its
infrastructure and killing more than 1,000 Palestinians.
In April
of last year, the Sudanese government accused Israel of carrying out
another missile and machine-gun strike with an attack helicopter on a
car south of Port Sudan, killing two.
The recent air strike
against Khartoum comes amid escalating US and Israeli wars and threats
throughout the region. The same night that the air strike was carried
out against Khartoum, the Israeli Air Force flew strikes against alleged
Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip, killing at least three people.
In Syria, the US and its Western allies are waging a now months-long proxy war to bring down the regime of Bashar al-Assad.
The
countries targeted by US imperialism are all considered allies of Iran,
against which the Obama administration and the Israeli government are
planning their next major war. In recent months both states have
repeatedly threatened Iran over its nuclear programme.
Significantly, there are reports that the factory targeted for destruction has ties to Iran and China. The British Guardian
quoted a UN source explaining that “there are two arms factories in
this area of the strike: one is the Yarmouk factory, the other is the
Sudan Technical Centre. We don’t know for certain if they are making
weapons or manufacturing ammunition. At the very minimum they are
repackaging munitions produced elsewhere. Yarmouk is sponsored by Iran.
The Sudan Technical Centre is definitely handling Chinese weapons.”
The
largest-ever joint US-Israeli military drill began on Sunday. For the
three-week-long exercise, 1,000 troops have been brought to Israel from
the US, while another 2,500 US military stationed in Europe and the
Mediterranean plus 1,000 members of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) are
involved. According to Israeli and American military officials, the
manoeuvre is testing Israel’s integrated anti-missile systems.
The
current attacks and manoeuvres are a further step towards war with
Iran, which would plunge the whole region into a devastating conflict,
threatening the lives of millions. Commenting on the strikes against
Gaza, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu made clear that the main
target of the attack is Iran.
“Today we engaged in exchanges
against terrorist aggression that comes from our southern border in
Gaza, but it actually comes from Iran and a whole terror network that is
supporting these attacks,” he declared.
Sudanese ambassador to
the UN Daffa-Alla Elhag Ali Osman called the attack “a blatant violation
of the concept of peace and security.” He warned that “it jeopardises
peace and security in the entire region, not just in Sudan.”
