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Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi spoke on Thursday with Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir and condemned Tuesday's airstrike on a weapons factory in Khartoum.

During the conversation, Morsi told Bashir he condemned what he termed the "Israeli aggression against Sudan."

Hamas politburo chief Khaled Mashaal also telephoned Bashir to condemn the "barbarian attack” by Israel.

On Tuesday night, a huge fire broke out at an arms factory in Khartoum. Sudan said the fire was a result of an attack by four military planes. The country’s Culture and Information Minister blamed Israel for the attack, adding that evidence pointing to Israel was found among remnants of the explosives.

The country’s envoy to the UN later demanded that the UN Security Council condemn Israel over the attack on the weapons factory.

Israel did not officially comment on the incident, but a retired Israeli defense official told Reuters on Thursday that Israel has been monitoring arms trafficking through Sudan in an attempt to "stem the flow of arms (to Sinai and Gaza) without triggering major confrontations.”

Foreign intelligence sources told the Reuters news agency that Israel had also carried out an unmanned drone raid on a convoy south of Khartoum. The sources claimed the strike destroyed 200 tons of munitions, including rockets, that were intended for Gaza.

In May, Sudan suggested that Israel was involved in an explosion that killed a suspected arms smuggler in the eastern Sudanese city of Port Sudan.

Last December, news outlets in Sudan claimed that Israeli fighter jets, helicopters and possibly a submarine were involved in multiple attacks on targets in the country.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu would not comment on the latest incident, saying at a news conference on Thursday that Israel had nothing to say about the explosion.

(Arutz Sheva’s North American Desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)

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Labels: Africa, Egypt, Israel, Middle East, Technology

posted by Pieface @ Friday, October 26, 2012