Sudan Claims Downing of Israeli Drone

The Hizbullah-affiliated Al-Mayadeen and foreign media outlets quoted a message issued by the Sudanese army saying that Sudanese forces shot down an Israeli unmanned aerial vehicle north of the capital of Khartoum overnight Tuesday. Sudanese citizens reported hearing loud explosions during the night.

The IDF would not comment on the report.

Israel has allegedly struck targets in Sudan in the past, having accused the Khartoum government of storing long range missiles for Hamas.

The Al-Araby al-Jadeed newspaper reported that “foreign planes” had struck a target in the city of Omdurman, in the capital state of Khartoum, citing Sudanese military sources described as “credible.”

Sudanese army spokesman Colonel Al-Sawarmy Khaled Saad said in an interview with Arabic-language Sky News Arabia news channel yesterday that the army’s Air Defense systems intercepted overnight Tuesday a “moving object that resembles a plane or a rocket” in the area of Omdurman.

In contrast to reports in Arab media outlets, the spokesman denied the military facilities were targeted by a domestic or foreign source. He claimed that the Air Defense forces intercepted the object after finding it suspicious.

Witnesses in Omdurman said they heard explosions near a military base and that a number of houses shook from the blasts. A police official said that a citizen called a local police station and reported seeing a “glowing entity in the sky.”

A witness who lives near the site of the attack told the Sudan Tribune newspaper that he had seen a “flame in the sky, and the house shook. It started at around 10:30 p.m. I didn’t hear airplanes in the area.” The strike was also reported by Saudi Arabia’s Al Arabiya news network.

This article appeared in print on page 7 of the May 7th, 2015 edition of Hamodia.