U.K.'s Sunday Times cites military
intelligence reports that Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, assassinated in Dubai, was
in possession of an agreement between Iran and Sudan from 2008 that
permitted Iran to manufacture weapons in Sudanese territory.
Satellite imagery of the
Yarmouk facility, before the bombing.
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Photo credit: AP |
The Sunday Times reported that eight Israeli
warplanes participated in the attack on the Yarmouk military complex
near the Sudanese capital Khartoum. According to the report, planning
for the operation began as a result of documents found on the body of
Hamas official Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, whose assassination in Dubai in 2010
prompted worldwide speculation that it was a Mossad operation.
The U.K. paper cited military intelligence
reports stating that Mabhouh was in charge of procuring weapons for
terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip, and was in possession of a copy of
an agreement between Iran and Sudan from 2008 that permitted Iran to
manufacture weapons in Sudanese territory.
The report claims that Israeli intelligence
managed to successfully prove that Iranian engineers had begun working
in Yarmouk under the watch of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and were
developing Iran's long-range Shihab missiles as well as other arms. The
plant served as a starting point for weapons convoys to the Gaza Strip.
Yarmouk is located in a densely populated
residential area of the city some 11 kilometers (seven miles) southwest
of the Khartoum International Airport.
Wednesday's explosion sent exploding
ammunition flying into homes in the neighborhood adjacent to the
factory, causing panic among residents. Sudanese officials said some
people suffered from smoke inhalation.
A man who lives near the factory said that
from inside their house, he and his brother heard a loud roar of what
they believed was a plane just before the boom of the explosion sounded
from the factory.
Meanwhile, Sudan's ambassador to the United
Nations issued a complaint to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon,
claiming that the nature of strike, and the advanced radar-jamming
technology used proves it was an Israeli operation.
Israel has faced numerous attempts to smuggle
weapons to the Gaza Strip. In March 2011, the Israeli Navy intercepted
the ship, Victoria, which carried a large cache of weapons including the
advanced C-704 anti-ship missile, which — had it landed in the hands of
terrorists — would have threatened navy operations as well as the
nearby natural gas drilling rigs.
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