BICOM

Two people were killed yesterday when an unidentified plane attacked a car near the airport in Port Sudan. The plane was later identified by Sudanese officials as ‘foreign’, and they said that it had entered Sudanese airspace from the Red Sea area. The IDF Spokesmans’ Office issued no comment regarding the matter, though media reports have noted that a raid on an arms smuggling convoy going through Sudan in January 2009 was widely attributed to Israel.

Sudan is a known route for arms smugglers seeking to transport weapons to the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. The Sudanese regime ruled by Omar al-Bashir is aligned with Iran, and the country’s territory is an ideal transit point for weaponry making its way from Iran, via Yemen, to Egypt and then the Gaza Strip. Last month, Egyptian security forces seized five vehicles on the Sudan-Egypt border which they said were carrying weapons to the Gaza Strip. Among the weapons seized were mortar shells, rifles and explosives.