Mar
27
Mark Lincoln from Houston says it straight:
We have reached the point where the news is circular.
The Times quotes unnamed sources quoting other news sources quoting unnamed sources quoting the
Times.
NYT: U.S. confirms IDF strike on Sudan convoy
By Haaretz Service
American officials have confirmed rumors that Israel Air Force warplanes attacked a convoy of Iranian arms passing through Sudan en route to the Gaza Strip in Sudan in January, The New York Times reported on Friday.
Officials apprised of classified intelligence assessments said that Israel carried out aerial attack as part of its effort to combat the smuggling of weapons into the Gaza Strip, according to The Times.
The officials also said they had received intelligence reports that an Iranian Revolutionary Guards operative an operative had gone to Sudan to help organize the effort. said the report.
Vince Crawley, a spokesman for the United States Africa Command, told The Times that U.S. forces had not been involved in the bombing.
“The U.S. military has not conducted any airstrikes, fired any missiles or undertaken any combat operations in or around Sudan since October 2008, when U.S. Africa Command formally became responsible for U.S. military action in Africa,” The Times quoted him as saying.
One official referred to the January attack as one in a series of Israeli operations against weapons being shipped to Gaza. Another former American official, however, told The Times that the origin of the arms being transferred through Sudan was unclear.
Israeli officials have declined to confirm or deny Israel’s involvement in the air strike in Sudan. They also refused to comment on the various foreign media reports about the strike.
Any Israeli decision to attack such a distant target would likely have been based on the belief that Iran could deliver arms into Gaza, possibly including 70-kilometer-range Fajr rockets.
That range would allow Hamas operatives to strike into the heart of Israel, Tel Aviv, from their Gaza bases.
Outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned Thursday following the reports that no place in the world was out of Israel’s reach for attack.
“We operate everywhere we can hit terrorist infrastructure – in nearby places, in places further away, anywhere we can strike them in a way that increases deterrence,” Olmert told a conference in Herzliya.
“Everyone can use their imagination. Those who need to know, know there is no place where Israel cannot operate. Such a place doesn’t exist,” he said.
Channel 10 television broadcast an interview with a Sudanese minister’s adviser who said that targets on or near Sudanese territory were bombed twice, and the second air strike destroyed a ship carrying Iranian arms.
Mubarak Mabrook Saleem, Sudan’s State Minister for Transportation, told The Associated Press he believed American planes were behind the bombings, which he said took place about a week apart.
He also claimed hundreds of people from several African states had been killed.
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