<
http://www.africa-confidential.com/browse-by-country/id/46/SUDAN> SUDAN |
<
http://www.africa-confidential.com/browse-by-category/id/70/ISRAEL> ISRAEL
- <
http://www.africa-confidential.com/article/id/4663/Target_Khartoum>
Target Khartoum
Israel's attack on a Khartoum arms factory highlights its tougher line in
Africa and Sudan's growing ties with Iran.
4th November 2012
Taken by surprise, Khartoum officials at first offered contradictory
explanations for the devastating attack on the El Yarmouk arms factory in
Khartoum at around midnight on 23-24 October. After emergency discussions,
the regime blamed Israel and complained to the United Nations Security
Council. Although Iran and Arab governments condemned the attack, there was
little real Arab support and virtually none from elsewhere.
The trigger for the bombing of the El Yarmouk Industrial Complex was an
attack on Israel from Gaza using Sudanese-made rockets, a senior Sudanese
opposition source claimed. Opposition parties have supporters - and
therefore sources - even in government organisations. As always, Israel
declined to confirm or deny the attack but one serving official told Africa
Confidential that the reason was developments in the Sinai Desert, where Al
Qaida and other jihadists had built up bases as Egypt's former regime under
President Mohamed Hosni Mubarak was losing control.
'We need time to understand exactly what happened here, but the role of
Sudan is clear: it is a dangerous terrorist state,' the Israeli Defence
Ministry's Director of Policy and Political Military Affairs, Major General
(Retired) Amos Gilad, told Israeli Army Radio. After a strike against a
Sudanese arms convoy in January 2009, the then Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud
Olmert, said: 'We operate in every area where terrorist infrastructures can
be struck. We are operating in locations near and far, and attack in a way
that strengthens and increases deterrence. There is no point in elaborating.
Everyone can use their imagination. Whoever needs to know, knows.' At the
time, Khartoum's National Congress Party regime had kept quiet about the
attack until relatives of the victims leaked it (AC Vol 50 No 7). The
silence was later seen as an admission that the NCP was moving weapons,
thought to be Fajr-3 rockets, via Sinai to the ruling Harakat al Muqawama al
Islamiya (Hamas) in Gaza.
The government has hosted both Hamas and Hezbollah since the guru of the NCP
(then called the National Islamic Front, NIF), Hassan Abdullah el Turabi,
and Mustafa Osman Ismail set up the People's Arab Islamic Conference in
Khartoum in 1991 (AC Vol 41 No 13). The PAIC was later seen as the cradle of
Al Qaida.
Doomsday meteors
This time, say opposition and other sources, the rockets for Gaza were
Shihab (meteor), probably Shihab-3. These have a 1,280-kilometre range. Some
observers doubted that such rockets would be destined for Gaza or that Iran
would allow such a powerful weapon to be made in Sudan. Others counter that
Iran needs a reliable manufacturing centre in case of an Israeli attack.
'The sky was filled with burning phosphorus, making people believe Doomsday
had come', said one Sudanese.
Britain's Sunday Times listed Israel's attack force as eight F-15I
aeroplanes, four carrying two one-tonne bombs, escorted by four fighters;
two CH53 helicopters, in case crew rescue were required; one Boeing 707
tanker, to refuel the jets and choppers over the Red Sea; and crucially, a
Gulfstream G550 ultra-long-range electronic warfare jet.
This was to jam Sudan's radar. Production may have been underground.
Photographs released by the United States-based Satellite Sentinel Project
show the main target as a 60-metre shed in the north-east of the vast
Yarmouk Complex and some 40 6.5 m. containers, monitored days earlier.
'While SSP cannot confirm that the shipping containers seen on October 12
remained at the site on October 24, analysis of the imagery is consistent
with the presence of highly volatile cargo in the epicenter of the
explosions', it says.
SSP was set up with assistance from Harvard University and finance from the
'Not on Our Watch' group founded by actors George Clooney, Don Cheadle, Matt
Damon and Brad Pitt. It also noted 'at least six' 16 m. impact craters. Most
of Yarmouk was not targeted but it was damaged by a massive fire that
reignited the next day and again on 29 October. Khartoum said that two
people were killed and many injured but did not mention deaths at the
factory itself. Local reports claimed at least seven Iranian engineers died.
The regime still has rocket storage facilities near Kenana, in White Nile
State, we hear. There were reports in White Nile that a convoy of weapons
had been bombed some three weeks ago, a Sudanese source told us. Reuters
news agency quoted 'Western intelligence sources' as confirming this.
Yarmouk, some 14 kilometres from central Khartoum, is in El Shejera ('tree',
originally Gordon's Tree) and a series of strategic installations is
scattered across the area from the White Nile to the Blue Nile, mixed in
with mainly down-market housing. The National Security and Intelligence
Service (NISS) quickly cordoned off the area, refusing access even to
police, who alone have the laboratory and other facilities needed to
investigate the damage.
NISS officials locally blamed the attack on the Sudan People's Liberation
Army, which only served to enhance the image of regime disarray, since the
SPLA (North or South) has no airpower. Khartoum State Governor Abdel Rahman
el Khidr then explained that the fire had spread because of 'dry grass',
after which the Sudan Armed Forces Spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Sawarmi
Khalid Saad, blamed a welder. The NCP Spokesman, Professor Badr el Din Ahmed
Ibrahim, offered yet another version and it was hours before Culture and
Information Minister Ahmed Bilal Osman blamed Israel. The NCP was probably
awaiting confirmation of Israel's role from 'other security forces in the
neighbourhood,' an oppositionist said.
Sudanese reacted with derision: 'The government spends its energy on
crushing the people not defending the country,' one commented. Most of
Sudan's weapons - manufactured or imported (mainly from China, Iran, Russia,
Belarus and Ukraine) - have been used at home. Khartoum's growing military
cooperation with Iran suggests it wants to build a serious arms export
industry. Intelligence agencies will watch its links with Islamist
governments and groups in Libya, Tunisia and most of all, Egypt, more
closely.
Sudan's relations with Iran - military and other - were active from soon
after the 1989 coup but grew strongly after the 2008 and 2009 defence
agreements. Several regime stalwarts had already been trained in security
skills, including torture, in Iran. In 2008, the then Iranian Defence
Minister, Mostafa Mohammad Najjar, described Sudan as 'the pivot of
Iran-Africa relations'. Under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's push
into Africa has grown rapidly. Israel monitors the ties between Tehran and
Khartoum: 'We know that it is also involved in shipping arms and weapons to
Libya through Darfur. From Darfur, weapons also go to Chad and Mali.
Meanwhile, Iran continues to increase its interests in the region through
business links and support of domestic wars,' an official said.
Tehran's task force
After the Yarmouk bombing, the Khartoum government emphasised its support
for Palestine and Muslim causes but barely mentioned Iran. Tehran had other
ideas. 'A task force of the 22nd Iranian army docked in Sudan this morning,'
the Iranian Students' News Agency reported on 29 October. The task force
comprised 'a helicopter fleet and destroyer ships, which have been sent to
Sudan with a message of peace and security to the neighbouring countries and
also of confronting terrorism.' This news may not have reassured
neighbouring Gulf governments.
Khartoum again declared itself at war with Israel; in fact, it has
officially been at war since 1967. It also complained to the UN Security
Council, where Ambassador Dafa'allah el Haj Ali Osman, a former envoy to
Bangladesh and Pakistan, told the Council that Israel 'was the main factor
behind the conflict in Darfur'. Also on 29 October, though, Tariq al Humeid,
Editor-in-Chief of Saudi Arabia's Asharq al Awsat, which is close to the
Royal Family, ridiculed Sudan's pretensions to confront Israel or produce
weapons when its people were hungry. He attributed Sudan's problems to
'Muslim Brotherhood' rule and failed to criticise Israel's attack.
<
http://www.africa-confidential.com/resources/1/uploads/documents/12_khartou
m_COL.jpg> Khartoum
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Received on Sun Nov 04 2012 - 20:11:59 EST
