In January and February of last year, Israeli jets carried out a series of airstrikes on smugglers in Eastern Sudan, thought to be transporting weapons bound for the Gaza Strip. The Israeli government never explicitly claimed responsibility for the attacks, but Prime Minsiter Ehud Olmert said shortly afterward, "Everyone can use their imagination. Those who need to know, know there is no place where Israel cannot operate."
But in the immediate aftermath of the airstrikes, a February 24 cable from Khartoum shows, the Sudanese government's operating assumption was that the U.S. was behind them:
CDA Fernandez was summoned to the Foreign Ministry on the morning of February 24 by Americas Department head Ambassador Nasreddin Wali. Wali said that he had sensitive and worrisome information to relate to the Charge. Reading from hand-written notes in Arabic and referring to a large dog-eared map brought in for the occasion, Wali said that there had been two air attacks on Eastern Sudan in January and February. [...]
3. (S) Wali said that "we assume that the planes that attacked us are your planes." He said that Sudan has had "tight cooperation" with the United States on security matters and any concerns that the USG has about security related issues can be raised within the context of bilateral diplomatic and intelligence relations between the two countries. He added that "Sudan would like to have clarification about this matter. We protest this act and we condemn it. Sudan reserves the right to respond appropriately, at the right time, in a legal manner consistent with protecting its sovereignty."
The author of the cable worries that the news inflame an already dangerous situation in the run-up to the International Criminal Court's indictment of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir on charges of crimes against humanity.
CDA had already scheduled an Emergency Action Committee meeting on February 24 to discuss the Embassy's security posture in the runup to the March 4 ICC announcement and this latest news is an additional concern in a very volatile political environment. Embassy requests Washington guidance on what - if any - formal response should be given to the Sudanese. And should this potentially explosive story somehow leak to the sensationalistic Sudanese press, it could very well turn our security situation here from bad to worse.
From the way the cable is written, it almost seems like the embassy itself isn't completely sure whether or not the U.S. was behind the attack.
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