Israeli Air Force Strikes Convoys in Sudan

The Jerusalem Post reported yesterday that the Israeli Air Force (IAF) had struck several vehicles in eastern Sudan last week.

An earlier airstrike in Sudan, April 2011 (Source: BBC)

The targets were apparently smuggling convoys–presumably loaded with weapons destined for terrorists in Gaza and perhaps the Sinai peninsula.

According to the Post:

Arabic news outlet Dar al-Hayyat on Sunday reported “conflicting information” coming out of Sudan regarding alleged Israeli air strikes. According to that report, the governor of Sudan’s Red Sea State district recently received notification from several citizens in the region that the IAF had raided smuggler convoys, in Abu Thabaq in the disputed Hala’ib triangle, but according to Dar al-Hayyat, the regional government noted it has no official information regarding whether Red Sea State hospitals received any dead or wounded in the alleged attacks.

According to Sudanese newspaper al-Rakoba, last November Israeli air strikes targeted a convoy of vehicles near Sudan’s border with Egypt, in Wadi Allaqi in the Hala’ib triangle region, an area whose ownership is disputed between Egypt and Sudan.

That raid allegedly hit and destroyed two cars, a Land Cruiser and a Toyota Hilux, killing two people and wounding several more, who fled in the direction of the Sudanese border, according to al-Rakoba. The report also said that eyewitnesses reported several people missing after the alleged raid, and also that the Egyptian air force flew over the area several times.

Also according to al-Rakoba, on December 15, Israeli Apache helicopters landed on an island east of the Red Sea port of Mohammed Qol, on which there is a Sudanese air defense radar station.

The recent attacks are not the first Israel has launched against weapons convoys in Sudan.

In April 2011, the Sudanese government accused Israel of carrying out an airstrike that killed a Hamas terrorist in the Red Sea town of Port Sudan.

In early 2009, Israel was reported to have launched three airstrikes on targets conveying Iranian weapons to Gaza. Though Israeli officials did not confirm or deny the reports, they warned that Israel would seek to target terrorist infrastructure wherever it posed a threat.

The recent airstrikes would seem to be the continuation of an increasingly proactive Israeli defense against Iran’s Middle East proxies.