Sudan FM: Fatal hit on car 'absolutely an Israeli attack'

Foreign Ministry declines to comment on accusation; Sudanese FM claims strike was meant to keep Sudan on US list of terrorism sponsors; Israel has been implicated in similar attacks in the past.

By REUTERS
F16 fighter jet (photo credit: Reuters)
F16 fighter jet
(photo credit: Reuters)
KHARTOUM - 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.
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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.
One of the two people killed in the strike was a Sudanese citizen who had no ties to Islamists or the government, he said.
Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor declined to comment on the accusation.
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.
Sudanese officials in 2009 said unknown aircraft had killed scores in a strike on a convoy of suspected arms smugglers on a remote road in the east, which some reports said may have been carried out by Israel to stop weapons bound for Gaza.
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.


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