Home

Sign up for our FREE Daily Email Newsletter

October 28, 2012 "The Sunday Times" -- A LONG-RANGE Israeli bombing raid last week that was seen as a dry run for a forthcoming attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities has destroyed an Iranian-run plant making rockets and ballistic missiles in Sudan.

Eight Israeli F-15I planes — four carrying two one-ton bombs, escorted by four fighters — struck the giant Yarmouk factory on the southwestern outskirts of Khartoum, the capital, in the early hours of Wednesday.

The raid, in which two people died, triggered panic across the city. Witnesses said they heard a series of loud blasts followed by the sound of ammunition exploding.

“It was a double impact — the explosion at the factory and then the ammunition flying into the neighbourhood,” said Abd-al Ghadir Mohammed, 31, a resident. “The ground shook. Some homes were badly damaged. Continue

======

Israel's 'dry run' for a strike against Iran: Two killed as jets bomb Sudanese rockets factory

Sudan vowed to take 'decisive steps' in retaliation against Israeli interests
Two people died in a series of explosions at the arms factory

By Daily Mail Reporter

October 29, 2012 "Daily Mail" -- Israel has destroyed a Sudanese weapons factory in a bombing raid, it was claimed yesterday.
Sudan vowed to take ‘decisive steps’ in retaliation against Israeli interests, which it said are now ‘legitimate targets’.

The Yarmouk arms factory, in the south of the capital Khartoum, was destroyed in a series of explosions on Wednesday last week, in which two people died.

Sudan immediately pointed the finger of blame at Israel, while an American monitoring group said satellite images of the aftermath of the explosion suggest the site was hit in an airstrike.

The images showed ‘six large  craters, each approximately 16 metres across and consistent with large impact craters created by  air-delivered munitions.
 

They were centred in a location where, until recently, some 40  shipping containers had been stacked’, according to the Satellite Sentinel Project.
 

There were claims yesterday that Israel attacked the factory because it was a front for manufacturing rockets and ballistic missiles for Iran. There were also reports that the raid acted as a ‘dry run’ for a forthcoming strike on Iran’s  nuclear facilities.

Israel has so far made no comment on the destruction of the factory, as has become conventional when it is accused of attacking targets in nearby countries.
 

But it has long seen Sudan as a conduit for weapons smuggled to the Hamas-ruled Gaza strip via the Egyptian Sinai desert. Sudan’s information minister, Ahmed Bilal Osman, said: ‘The sophisticated warplanes and weapons used in the attack are available to no country in the region except Israel.’

He added that Sudan would have to take ‘decisive steps’ in retaliation although this would ‘definitely’ not entail a direct strike.
 

‘But we have the means, we have the means of how we can reply. They killed our people... and we know how to retaliate.’
 

There was widespread condemnation in the Arab world yesterday over the alleged attacks, although there was no direct proof linking them to Israel.
 

Western ‘security sources’ told the Sunday Times the bombing raid was carried out by eight Israeli F-151 planes.