Vol. 73/No. 14      April 13, 2009

One bombing in Sudan in mid-January killed 39 people riding in 17 trucks, said Sudanese officials. A spokesperson for the Sudanese Foreign Ministry said the trucks were likely smuggling goods, but not weapons. Among those killed were Ethiopian and Eritrean immigrants.

While not officially confirming the strikes, outgoing Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert said shortly after they were reported, “We operate everywhere we can hit terror infrastructure—in close places, in places further away.”

“There is no point in going into detail,” Olmert added, in comments clearly pointed at Iran. “Everybody can use their imagination. Those who need to know, know. And those who need to know, know that there is no place where Israel cannot operate.”

Both Tel Aviv and Washington claim that Iran’s nuclear energy program is a cover for developing nuclear weapons, although Tehran states its program is to provide energy to develop its agriculture and industry.

During the Israeli assault against the Gaza Strip earlier this year, Washington and Tel Aviv signed an agreement to intensify cooperation to block arms shipments to Hamas. They charged that the Iranian government has been arming both Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. The Egyptian government agreed to help block the arms shipments and in January prevented an Iranian ship from entering the Suez Canal.

Israel’s bombing raids in Sudan are not the first of its attacks against targets in other countries. On June 7, 1981, 14 Israeli warplanes entered Iraqi airspace and destroyed a nuclear reactor in Osirak near Baghdad. In September 2007, “Israel allegedly bombed a covert nuclear facility in Syria,” according to the Jerusalem Post, “and last year was widely accused of the assassination of Hizbullah operative Imad Mughniyeh in Damascus.”

The March 28 Wall Street Journal noted that retired Israeli military officers say the attack on Sudan “would likely have been impossible without American intelligence.”

The attack furthers ongoing imperialist intervention in Sudan. The United Nations currently has about 15,000 troops in Darfur in Western Sudan, where some 300,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million displaced since 2003. Armed groups demanding autonomy for the region and an end to discrimination against several minorities have fought Sudanese soldiers and government-backed militias there. There are also more than 9,000 UN troops in South Sudan.

On March 4 the UN-created International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir. The indictment, backed by Washington, accuses al-Bashir of “war crimes” and “crimes against humanity.”

In retaliation al-Bashir ordered the expulsion of 13 nongovernmental “humanitarian assistance” groups that provide food and shelter in Darfur, charging they had spied against him. A UN delegation says that more than a million people in Darfur will not get food rations in May that are currently distributed by the expelled groups.

Several of Washington’s allies in the region have demonstrably taken their distance from the international court’s blatant violation of Sudan’s sovereignty. Besides traveling to Eritrea, Libya, and Ethiopia after the arrest warrant was issued, al-Bashir was warmly welcomed by Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and senior government ministers at Cairo’s airport March 25.

“There is an Egyptian, Arab, African position that rejects the way the court has dealt with the status of the president of Sudan,” said Ahmed Aboul Gheit, Egypt’s foreign minister.

Al-Bashir was given a red-carpet welcome when he arrived for an Arab League summit March 29 in Qatar.

Meanwhile, the Canadian government will host a May international conference to discuss how to prevent weapons shipments from Iran to the Gaza Strip, Israel’s Haaretz newspaper reported. Government representatives from Canada, Britain, Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Denmark, Israel, and the United States will take part.

Immediately after the conference Washington will host a “war game”—a practice scenario on blocking arms smuggling from Iran to Gaza.
 
 
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