Olmert: No Target Is Out of Israel’s Reach

Questions have abounded since yesterday’s revelation of the January attack on a truck convoy carried out by Israeli warplanes in the Sudanese desert. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert wouldn’t directly confirm the attack, however, advising people instead to “use their imagination.”

At the same time, Olmert used discussion of the attack to underscore that “there is no place where Israel cannot operate,” adding “we operate everywhere we can hit terrorist infrastructure – in nearby places, in places far away.”

The truck convoy which was attacked allegedly contained small arms being sent to Hamas, and the Israeli attack killed 39 people, destroying all the trucks. Sudanese officials today are also claiming that another related attack was launched in February, destroying a ship that may have been Iranian. Hamas denied that the convoy carried arms for their government, and said the reports were a pretext to declare war on the Sudan.

The attacks seem to have been spawned by a US-Israeli agreement signed in the final days of the Bush Administration (immediately following the Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip) pledging to cooperate in stopping arms smuggling into the war-torn strip.