Israel blamed for deadly airstrike in Sudan
April 6, 2011
JERUSALEM (JTA) -- Sudan's foreign minister blamed Israel
for a bombing attack on a car near the country's port city that killed
two.
"This is absolutely an Israeli attack," Ali Karti told reporters Wednesday in the capital of Khartoum, Reuters reported.
The day before, an unidentified plane reportedly flew into Sudanese
airspace from the Red Sea and bombed the car, killing its two
passengers, before flying back the way it came. The plane evaded several
missiles fired by the Sudanese army.
Karti said one of the car's dead passengers was a Sudanese citizen with no government or Islamist ties.
Israel carried out the attack, he said, to prevent Sudan from being
removed from a U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism. Sudan is under
consideration to be removed from the list.
Neither Israel's foreign minister nor its military has commented on the attack.
Israel was accused in 2009 of a deadly strike on a convoy of trucks
in eastern Sudan suspected of being arms smugglers transporting weapons
bound for the Gaza Strip.