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Israel claims "no knowledge" about Sudanese allegations of arms plant attack

24 October 2012 20:27 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. The Israeli Foreign Ministry on Wednesday claimed they have "absolutely no knowledge" about the allegations by Sudanese officials over Israel’s involvement in a " mysterious" explosion of a Khartoum ammunition plant, APA reports quoting Xinhua.

Yigal Palmor, spokesperson for the ministry, told Xinhua that the ministry do not know anything regarding the explosion.

An explosion occurred late Tuesday at Al-Yarmouk arms factory in the Sudanese capital, causing a huge fire and leaving two people killed and another injured, according to the Sudanese government spokesman Ahmed Bilal Osman.

Bilal, also Sudanese information minister, said the explosion was caused by an airstrike, and accused Israeli planes of launching the attack.

Eyewitnesses who saw parts of metal dispersed beyond the flames at the factory said the planes came from the east.

The Israeli Defense Forces’ spokesman refused to comment on the allegations at present.

The Sudanese government has blamed Israel for several attacks on Sudanese targets, including a car explosion that killed one person in the eastern city of Port Sudan in May, a missile attack in 2011, and an air strike on a suspected weapons-smuggling convoy in 2009.

Israel has declined to comment on all the attacks, and has never admitted to any involvement in them.

The eastern part of Sudan has allegedly been using for a long time as a trail for weapon smuggling, often via the deserts of Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula into the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.