The NYT’s Lede reports that an airstrike by a “major power” took place in northeastern Sudan in January this year, somewhere inland of its harbor on the Red Sea, Port Sudan. Although speculation was that the “major power” was the US, subsequent reporting by the BBC suggested the attack was made by Israel to prevent arms from reaching Gaza.
An Egyptian newspaper, Al-Shurooq, first reported on Tuesday what Mr. Salim said at a news conference in Sudan — that a “major power bombed small trucks carrying arms” headed towards Sudan’s border with Egypt in January. The state-supported Iranian broadcaster Press TV seems to have the most complete account in English of the Egyptian newspaper’s article. …
On Thursday morning, Reuters reported that “two senior Sudanese politicians” said that “unidentified aircraft attacked a convoy of suspected arms smugglers as it drove through Sudan toward Egypt in January, killing almost everyone in the convoy.” Andrew Heavens, reporting from Khartoum for Reuters, added: “The politicians, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue, told Reuters the strike took place in a remote area in east Sudan but did not say who carried it out.”
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The BBC wrote that the attack had been directed against a possible shipment of missiles to Gaza that would have enabled a group, possibly Hamas, to reach targets deep inside Israel, thereby seriously widening the war.
Giving a speech in the coastal town of Herzliya, the outgoing prime minister said: “We operate in many places near and far, and carry out strikes in a manner that strengthens our deterrence.” The CBS television network said it had been told by American officials that a strike by Israeli planes in January had succeeded in preventing weapons from Sudan reaching Gaza. Mr Mabrook Mubarak Saleem said those killed in the air raid had been civilians from a number of African countries.
the assumption is that this was a serious target, our correspondent says, and that these were weapons that could have changed the game in the conflict between Israel and Palestinian militants. They could have included surface to air missiles or perhaps missiles with a 70km range that would have enabled militants to hit Tel Aviv from Gaza, our correspondent adds.
Readers will recall that the Israeli campaign in Gaza was in full swing in January, the last month of the Bush Administration’s tenure. Given the geographical location of the attack, it is possible that the strike involved weapons which arrived by sea from a country to the east from the Gulf or the Indian Ocean. From there, the weapons weapons might have been loaded into trucks and sent north to Egypt for eventual smuggling across to Gaza. The missles could not have been bigger than was capable of being loaded in components, upon trucks. This arms smuggling speculation is supported by a recent dispatch from the Associated Press which reports the attack place near the Sudanese-Egyptian border. A link to a Google Map showing the area is here.
Sudanese officials said foreign warplanes launched two separate airstrikes last month on Sudan near its border with Egypt, targeting convoys packed with light weapons and African migrants trying to sneak across the frontier.
Just who was behind the strikes remains a mystery, but the U.S. and Israel immediately came under suspicion.
Mubarak Mabrook Saleem, Sudan’s State Minister for Transportation, told The Associated Press he believed American planes were behind the bombings about a week apart in early February and claimed hundreds were killed. A Foreign Ministry spokesman confirmed his account but said there were discrepancies on casualties. The U.S. denied any airstrike on Sudan.
Arab and U.S. media reports said Israel was behind the attacks because the convoys were smuggling weapons to Egypt destined for Gaza. The militant Hamas, which rules Gaza, smuggles weapons in through tunnels along the Egyptian border.
These reports suggest that the Gaza crisis was far more potentially serious than reported because a foreign power was willing to ship missiles to Hamas to widen the war against Israel regardless of the consequences. The Gaza ground operation would have been only one end of a two-ended operation to stop the missile attacks. It was but one part of a larger struggle whose outlines are now only becoming evident. But incident also raises the issue of what will happen if Clinton’s campaign to rebuild Gaza and open it to incoming traffic succeed, because it shows the issues involved are not local ones between Israel and Hamas, but between Israel and the masterminds of its proxy foes. The possible use of migrant convoys also suggests that the practice of using human shields as cover for belligerent activity is alive and well. Unless Hamas and the country to the East have changed their behavior, the diplomatic offensive can only mean another war in Gaza and perhaps elsewhere on the day when Hamas can freely import the weapons that were temporarily denied to it.
Update
The Jerusalem Post reports there were two strikes on the ground, one in January and another in February, plus a ship sunk at sea. “Following unconfirmed reports that Israel or the US attacked a convoy of trucks carrying weapons headed for the Gaza Strip in Sudan, a new report by Sudanese sources cited an additional strike on a ship possibly making its way to Sudan from Iran.” There’s the “I” word again, and it’s not “Israel”.
I’m going with Israel on this one.
It’s an odds on bet that Iran was giving Hamas the C-802 anti-shipping missile. Such a weapon could thwart the Israeli seaward control of weapons imports. Further, nothing would stop such a missile from ranging landward towards strategic targets like airfields and power plants.
Iran is everywhere a menace.
Maybe the whole thing was just the government of Sudan bombing the doctors without borders convoy.
The interesting omission is where did the missiles come from… Iran?
The evidence for Iran’s involvement arises from two things: geography and precedent. They are supporters of Hamas and they have blue water access to Red Sea ports. The evidence against is the behavior of US diplomacy. If Iran were widening the war against Israel, then the timing of US “engagement” in Gaza and the President’s outreach to Teheran becoming very puzzling. Why would they act to reward the Ayatollahs or believe they could be sweet-talked if this incident were true? Of course, the calculation in the administration could be that “engagement” is necessary to prevent such a thing from happening again.
I fully expect aid to Gaza to remain notional until Gilad Shalit is released. While Israel has often proven ready to give too much return dead and living POWs, that is a red line of theirs while for Hamas, Gilad Shalt is the only thing they have of commercial value in the whole Godforsaken strip, which has made an exchange even by the weak-willed Olmert very difficult (although one can never rule out s surprise).
This is actually the second action of regional scope that either Israel or other Western states have been involved in since the Gaza War. The first was the interception at sea of an Iranian ship that reflagged to Cyprus at sea.
The predicates for striking at Iran are being laid. If Iranian arms can be struck in transit in Sudan or vessels can be intercepted on the high seas, there would not seem to be an principle preventing a strike on Iran other than apprehension about biting the bullet.
There would not be any “consequences” for Iran to widen the war. What, Obama or the UN would say it’s “unhelpful?” They wouldn’t even go that far. And Israel has basically nukes or nothing.
Which is the biggest problem between Iran and Israel.
Iran, for internal reasons, is committed to wiping out Israel and really all Jews everywhere. It’s enormously popular among Muslims who overwhelmingly yearn for a second Holocaust, and much of the Left which would endorse one as well. The Paleo right like Pat Buchanon, beloved of the Left, would also endorse this.
There is no stopping point, or dividing line, or cautionary mechanism to disengage Iran from it’s behavior, no check ala Israeli domestic politics which reflects a deeply suburbanized, risk-averse, middle class, and feminized population which values it’s consumerist way of life.
Israelis would rather go shopping than make war, Iran’s leaders AND IT’S PEOPLE would rather kill than go shopping. Since the culture and society of Iran is a total failure other than warfare.
There isn’t even any inconclusive border war that produces great casualties amongst Iranians, enough to threaten the stability of the regime itself (ala Iran-Iraq War) to produce moderating forces by a brutal regime (and let’s be honest, people) intent on wiping out a distant and largely irrelevant people.
So Israel has to decide: do they want to live or do they prefer to die, all of them?
If they want to live, they must wipe out as many Iranians as possible in a first nuclear strike. The aim being to kill as many Iranians as possible since it’s not just the regime but the Iranian people themselves who have signed on to the project of a Second Holocaust.
It’s just that simple. Obama, Hillary, and Dems have already sold out Israel. THAT was predictable as putting Bill Ayers protege (and Rev. Wright’s) in the White House and getting reflexive anti-Americanism everywhere.
Whiskey, I believe you are right but I fear the Israel of today has too many secular lefties. Their grandparents would have taken care of business already.
When you consider left wing parties did so well in an election when the country was being attacked by rockets everyday it kind of demonstrates what a bunch of wussies they’ve become. Modern Israelis would rather go shopping…that’s just the f’n problem.
Most of the elites, like Olmert, have back up passports to Western European countries. When it finally hits the fan, they’ll be outta there and let the dumb Russian immigrants get nuked or rounded up in a Palestinian Holocaust.
Israel is a mess. It’s become a corrupt country. Don’t look for any temples to get built for at least another 500 years.
OT but astounding to watch:
http://tinyurl.com/c3u5dn
Totalitarian indoctrination Leftist style on campus!
This is the world H knows. Be very afraid.
Debka is claiming that AC 130s participated in the strike
A link to a Google Map showing the area is here.
The link shows the area around Cairo.
In The Industry:
I fully expect aid to Gaza to remain notional until Gilad Shalit is released.
The Democrats are outraged whenever a prisoner-of-war is held captive in secret and the Red Cross is denied access. Therefore the Obama Administration probably will demand soon and publicly that the Red Cross be allowed to interview Gilad Shalit and critique the conditions of his imprisonment, in accordance with the Geneva Conventions.
Wretchard: regarding BH0′s “engagement” . . .
“An armed society is a polite society.”
It’s much easier to be generous and respectful – especially to scoundrels – when you know you have the ability to *force* a concession. Of course, the big question is whether or not BH0 considers himself to be “armed” – and willing to use arms if necessary. Past precedent tells me that the answer to that question is “no.”
It was probably bombardment by the usual space aliens, which has happened recently in that area. See this story in today’s San Franciso Chronicle:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/03/26/MND316MRDN.DTL&hw=Perlman&sn=001&sc=1000
“An asteroid exploded over Sudan’s Nubian Desert last year with the force of a small atom bomb and sent a Mountain View astronomer racing into the rock-strewn sandy wilderness to recover tiny fragments of a space rock …”
The Chronicle story has pictures. And the Chron is a more reliable source than Sudanese politicians.
I’m rather surprised that Israel is not sinking the delivery vessels as this activity constitutes open warfare on the part of Iran.
But then letting the tunnels remain active is a complete puzzler, too.
Olmert is the wrong man at the wrong time in the wrong position.
Whiskey…
In the big picture, the better solution is to cripple the Iranian economy:
Nix the navies
Cancel Kharg
Reduce the refinery
Short the power grid
Blockade the ports
Keep the nukes in reserve.
blert
Depends on how big the vessels are. William Langeweische wrote in “The Outlaw Sea” about how hard it is to police the seas. Boats seemingly pop up on the horizon.
For that one ship the US Navy intercepted and rerouted, we had no authority (I mean rules of engagement, not the UN good housekeeping seal) to stop it. We did have the authority to tell the captain that the Israelis knew their location too, so complying with a US request was in their best interest.
It’s interesting that some of these events remain secret so long.
When the Israeli’s bombed that nuclear facility in Syria, it remained secret for several weeks.
Now this event in Sudan has remained secret from early February until almost the end of March. A truck convoy was destroyed and hundreds of people were killed, but not a peep about it from anybody. What is the Sudan Government’s motivation for remaining silent?
Iran practically is a one-dimension economy and has a lot of dependencies.
If she gets cut off the effect will be the same as dropping a certain ring in a lode of lava.
In these hard times the mullahs may well grab the cash and get out of harms way.
In any event Israel has the ability to exact a terrible price upon the mullahs and every rationale to do so.
What will Bibi do?
16. Probably an internal debate about balancing the advantages of being hurt by the hated Zionists against admitting they were assisting, even passively, attempts by Iran to sponsor terrorism against Israel. They do not need more scrutiny than they are currently getting.
This smuggling has to antagonize the Egyptian government, too.
Sudan must always consider how riled up they want their northern neighbor to get.
DoD is fast tracking a very high altitude high tech blimp that will be able to persist over the battlespace. While it was pitched in the open literature as perfect for Pakistan’s tribal belt one can reasonably assume that many other theaters will make use of such a platform.
http://tinyurl.com/cqnun4
The above is the DoD release.
blert, I think you are right.
The reason the Sudanese dog did not bark was that Sudan was hiding this smuggling operation from the Egytian Government. The mention of “African migrants trying to sneak across the frontier” is another indication that this bombing happened on a smuggling trail that was supposed to remain secret from Egypt.
Which raises another speculation that Israel was informed about this smuggling operation by Egypt.
If smugglers had succeeded in crossing the Sudan-Egypt border with the secret weapons, then it would be politically difficult for the Egyptian Government to confiscate the weapons as they continued on their way to Gaza. Egypt would have been spared such a difficult situation if somehow the weapons were destroyed before they crossed that border. Of course, the Egyptian Air Force could have bombed the weapons before they crossed the border … or another alternative would be if ….
ECHELON knows who was involved.
I’ve got to believe that H would cut Israel off from Echelon as far as he knows.
I’d say Bibi’s on his own WRT H.
It stinks, but there it is.
If anyone has any sanity they should give H the FDR treatment: isolate him from Echelon.
Here is the word I’m getting. Lenghty and a reliable source.
Sudan attack demonstrates new U.S.-Israel counter-Iran policy
Published 26 March 2009
Israeli aircraft, with U.S. logistical and intelligence support, attack and destroy an Iranian arms convoy in Sudan; arms were part of an effort by Iran to resupply Hamas’s forces in Gaza
It has been reported today that in late January, a convoy carrying Iranian arms from a military base in Sudan to the port city Port Sudan was attacked and destroyed by Israeli aircraft, with U.S. logistical and intelligence support.
The attack is a demonstration of a new U.S.-Israeli approach to Iran’s growing influence in the Middle East — and also a demonstration of Israel’s ability to destroy targets hundreds of miles from the country’s borders.
Background
One of the reasons Israel launched its campaign in Gaza on 27 December 2008 was to destroy the large weapons stores of Hamas, and to prevent Hamas from rearming itself. Both Hamas and Hezbollah have been supplied by Iran. Iran has not only supplied these two organizations with vast amounts of rockets, explosives, and other weapons, but hundreds of officers from these two organizations receive extensive training in Iran by the Iranian military. In the case of Hezbollah, Iranian engineers built an intricate system of bunkers and tunnels in south Lebanon for use by Hezbollah fighters, and Iranian officers are integrated in Hezbollah formations.
Since 1996 Iran has been funding Hezbollah to the tune of about $1 billion a year. Among other things, Iranian engineers built thousands of residential buildings in Shi’a towns and villages in south Lebanon and in the Shi’a sections of Beirut — but what they also did was build fortified rooms and underground facilities into these residential building in which Hezbollah hid the Katyusha and Fajr rockets it had received from Iran.
Iran as a revolutionary power
Iran, to use Henry Kissinger’s terminology, is a revolutionary power. In his academic writings about eighteen- and nineteenth-century Europe, Kissinger distinguished between status quo and revolutionary powers.
A status quo power is generally satisfied with the current international arrangements, and to the extent that it works to advance its interests and strengthen its position, it does so within an accepted framework of rules and practices.
A revolutionary power is dissatisfied with the current international distribution of power and benefits, and it works energetically to upturn the current system, destroy it, and replace it with a system in which the distribution of power and benefits is more to its liking. A revolutionary power is characterized not only by its rejection of the current power arrangements, but also by its rejection of the current rules of the international game.
Napoleon’s France was a revolutionary power, as were Stalin’s Russia, Hitler’s Germany, and Saddam’s Iraq. The two key policies of Kissinger, after he left academia and joined the Nixon administration, were détente with the Soviet Union and the opening to China. Both policies, Kissinger explained, were aimed at turning the Soviet Union and China from revolutionary to status quo powers by offering them greater stakes in the current international order.
Iran is a revolutionary power. It uses revolutionary means to change the balance of power and benefits in the region in its favor. One method is destabilize pro-American regimes. It arms and trains Hezbollah so that it could be a counterweight to the elected government of Lebanon. It arms and equips Hamas so it could undermine the Palestinian Authority. Iran supports Shi’a groups in the Gulf sheikdoms in order to keep the latter on their toes. Iran is also publicly committed to the destruction of another state — Israel — and is assiduously working to acquire means to do so.
The means Iran has chosen with which to pursue its policies also deviate from accepted international practices: we noted above its support of domestic militias aiming to undermine the authority of elected governments. Iran operatives not only support terrorist groups — but they engage in terrorism themselves. Thus, in response to a 1992 killing by Israel of Sheikh Abbas Mussawi, a top Hezbollah leader, Iranian operatives, on 17 March 1992, blew up the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, killing 29 and injuring 250. Two years later, on 18 July 1994, Iranian intelligence operatives blew up the office of the Jewish Mutual Society in Buenos Aires, Argentina, killing 85 people and injuring hundreds.
The post-Gaza arrangement
Which brings us back to Gaza, and to the determination of the Obama administration to present Iran with starker choices. The administration said on several occasions that it wanted better relations with Iran. At the same time, the administrations shows greater readiness to confront Iran on the ground and curtail its influence in the Middle East.
One result of the Gaza operation has been a greater determination by Israel and the United States to prevent Iran from rearming Hamas. Already during the three-week Gaza campaign, Israel used advanced bunker-busting bombs — of the kind it will use against Iranian nuclear weapons facilities if it decided to attack Iran — to destroy about 500 of the 800 tunnels Hamas has dug. After the operation ended, that determination is manifested in three ways:
Since the middle of January, when the campaign in Gaza ended, Hamas and other militant organizations continued to launch rockets against Israeli towns in the south. Israel, when it retaliates, has so far chosen to bomb and destroy additional tunnels, thus trying to complete the tunnel-destruction effort it began on 27 December.
The United States and the Europeans have provided Egypt with sophisticated detection equipment which will help the Egyptians detect tunnel-digging activity by Hamas. Egyptian soldiers have been trained in using this equipment.
By far the most important element of the new determination is the protective envelope the United States has placed in the Gulf of Aden, to the south of the Sinai Peninsula. Iran has moved large amounts of weapon and equipment to warehouses in Somalia and Sudan. From these storage facilities the equipment is ferried to the Sinai — often by Somali pirates — where it is picked up by Bedouins and carried north to the Gaza strip. By interfering with Iranian and pirate shipping, the United States is cutting the supply of Iranian arms to Hamas at the source.
This is the meaning of the January operation in Sudan. This is what we know: Israeli planes, supported by the U.S. Air Force and by information from U.S. satellites, attacked a convoy carrying Iranian weapons from their storage facility to the shore, where small boats were waiting to carry the weapons into Sinai. Seventeen trucks were destroyed and some forty Sudanese were killed (the president of Sudan, Omar al-Bashir, today claimed that 800 people were killed in the attack).
Intelligence sources who track the Iranian weapon smuggling activity say that until the January attack, Iran was sending two or three similar convoys a months from Sudan to the Sinai.
Few analysts have better access to intelligence information in Israel and the United States than Yediot Ahronot’s Ronen Bergman (author of the excellent The Secret War with Iran). In today’s column he writes:
Since the end of the Second Lebanon War [July-August 2006], where we [Israelis] tried to show our neighbors that we’ve gone crazy, yet didn’t quite succeed in doing it — something changed in Israel. In the time that passed since then it turned out that not only are we angry, we also have very long arms. Israel does not take official responsibility for operations deep in enemy territory, yet if they are attributed to Israel by the international media it responds with silence and a wink….
Since the early 1990s, Israeli officials have monitored with concern the takeover of radical Islamic elements on Sudan and the establishment of terror group training camps in the country. In recent years, Sudan has become one of the favorite smuggling routes for Iranian intelligence, with arms from Revolutionary Guard bases going through Sudan to Egypt, and then reaching Gaza via the Sinai desert and the underground tunnels at the Philadelphi Route….
The balance of terror [between Israel and Iran] created by the two attacks in Argentina in the wake of the killing of former Hezbollah Chief Musawai prompted Israel to focus on operations against the Hezbollah group only, and not against its mother and father — Iran and Syria….
However, the recent operations attributed to Israel against Iranians arms in Sudan and against Syrian targets [the 6 September 2007 destruction of Syrian nuclear facility] are more than a hint that this balance of terror no longer exists.
U.S. and Israeli officials refused to comment. We note, however, a speech Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert gave today in Herzlyia, outside Tel Aviv. He warned Israel’s adversaries that Israeli forces, in defending the country, were operating “near and far.”
“We are operating in every area in which terrorist infrastructures can be struck,” he said at a conference in Herzliya. “We are operating in locations near and far and attack in a way that strengthens and increases deterrence. It is true in the north and in the south … there is no point in elaborating. Everyone can use their imagination. Whoever needs to know, knows.”
Thanks, Habu (Comment #24).
That was fascinating.
Jamie Irons
OT but linked to prior AIG threads:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123802506167942421.html
This article makes public knowledge what I’ve been stating at he Club for weeks.
The locus of AIG’s troubles is really centered in Paris and involves the fiasco of Eastern Europe.
It’s interesting to note that AIG has reduced its book from 2.4 T to 1.6 T in the last six months. $ 180 B and we’re only a third of the way out the door!
Pay attention to how many ways AIG can default and why Uncle Sam does not dare take day to day control of AIG — it would constitute a change in control and ALL CDS’s would be defaulted!
Similar language is boiler plate all over the insurance world.
BTW negotiating down the CDS payments also triggers AIG into default status. So when you hear some fool demanding that the counter-parties participate in the pain you know the gasbag does know what he’s talking about.
To stay out of default AIG management must stay in place and she must pay off at par. That’s it, period.
does NOT know…
25. Jamie Irons:
My pleasure sir. I receive some information from subsciption sources inside the beltway or from “beltway bandits” that are not generally known to the general population.
Some are darn expensive and I have no way any longer of checking their validity but I try to sneak in pieces of the stuff every now and then that I don’t think the MSM knows about or simply doesn’t print.
Obviously it’s not TS or Codewrod stuff but hey … conduits are useful.
The alliance between Israel and the US military, not State, spoken of appears to predate Obama.
The campus indoctrination video reminds me, what tiny backwater does our brainless gasbag of a Vice President come from?
Israel needs more submarines, that is there greatest vulnerability at the moment. Ideally they could impose a de-facto blockade on Iran. Iranian merchants and arms shippers should be vanishing in the night.
This raid sounds like good training for the Israelis, now they need to add the Iranian ASM threat to the model.
My layman’s guess is that
1) the Egyptians pointed this out
2) the US provided location and real-time intelligence once they knew where to look
3) US Air Force tankers, flying out of an airbase nearby (Qatar?) provided in air refueling
4) Israeli F-16′s (which were probably delivered years ago to be compatible to US Air Force tankers) did the deed.
This interoperability opens up some new vistas for an attack on Iran’s nuclear capability; it would solve the range problem of Israeli F-15′s and F-16′s. But I doubt that the Obama Administration would contenance such a co-ordinated effort by the US Air Force and IDF strike fighters.
Some people say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one…..
The Gaza war ended with a lot of things broken in Gaza but didn’t result in a decisive victory for Israel and a lot of pundits, mostly against Israel but not all, have declared the war a failure. Near the end of the war and since there has been a lot of talk about ending arms smuggling into Gaza. The longer range rockets smuggled in from Iran are a red line for Israel.
Perhaps a deal was struck between Israel and the US. Israel would stop the war and the US would commit to much stronger action against the arms smuggling. It would seem a little messy to strike such a deal at the very end of the Bush administration that would bind the next administration but I think it’s possible since it really is in the US interest as well as Israel’s to stop this smuggling.
And Mubarak can’t be too thrilled to see his border agents bribed into submission by an alien hostile power. The traditional leader of the greater arab world has long been Egypt.
Israel should whipstock some sensor laden horizontal bores from the Negev to the Sea.
Then they could use SOSUS logic to passively detect fresh tunneling and deter the diggers by encapsulation.
A “major power” eh? I’m going with the Gnarn from Betelgeuse.
Habu- So where does Obama fit in this strategy.
Are you saying Obama’s people are on board with the strategy of ” the determination of the Obama administration to present Iran with starker choices. The administration said on several occasions that it wanted better relations with Iran. At the same time, the administrations shows greater readiness to confront Iran on the ground and curtail its influence in the Middle East.”
And did this strategy come from Obama’s people or the military?
So Obama has a strategy? Is it to publicly fawn over Iran while privately and in secret brutalize them?
the iranians are a revolutionary power to a point , like the ussr, after you get past the revolutionary bs you get a good old fashioned imperial power- russia or persia.it’s the justifications that are revolutionary.the persians operate as they always have ,obliquely through proxies, never directly like the “bloodthirsty Greeks”.
31
Bingo! That’s what Livni was doing shuttling around DC during the war.
Mike Sylwester @11: The Democrats are outraged whenever a prisoner-of-war is held captive in secret and the Red Cross is denied access. Therefore the Obama Administration probably will demand soon and publicly that the Red Cross be allowed to interview Gilad Shalit and critique the conditions of his imprisonment, in accordance with the Geneva Conventions.
Dude, you forgot your /sarc tag.
Another factor in the bombing of this convoy near the Sudan-Egypt border is that the Egyptian military might have unexpectedly blocked the convoy from crossing. The convoy perhaps was turned into a stationary target under the Israeli bomber aircraft.
Unsk, I’ve come to the conclusion that one should never EVER pay any attention to what Bambi says. Pay attention to what his proxies are doing.
yes, he is taking hammer and tong to meanings. Clinton was notorious for this, but O has him beat.
Add another note of thanks to Habu for the deep background.
Leaves many questions: the O-admin bought into military cooperation with Israel to interdict Iranian arms smuggling? Color me speechless.
Although I wouldn’t join whiskey on the means, I agree with blert that now might be timely for Israel to conduct strikes on economic targets in Iran. They must be already way overextended with the softness in oil prices. It could be that a good push would do the trick.
Egypt had to be complicit; possibly Saudi Arabia, also. Neither is thrilled with Iran; both would prefer to have that perticular problem either embarassed or (preferably) destabilized – as in assisting someone put a stick in the Mullas’ eye.
Mike Sylvester: Obama Administration probably will demand soon and publicly that the Red Cross be allowed to interview Gilad Shalit and critique the conditions of his imprisonment, in accordance with the Geneva Conventions.
Yeah, right. Israel commits “war crimes” when they move to stop their schools from taking incoming rocket artillery fire. Maybe if the Gazans were running dog fights ala Michael Vick, PETA might get Obama to move against them.
The answers are coming in:
http://tinyurl.com/d4yx9j
Israel HAS been sinking ships and bombing convoys.
INRE #14