Yarmouk munitions factory explosion


On Tuesday 23 October 2012 at midnight local time there was an explosion at the Yarmouk munitions factory, south of Khartoum, Sudan. The factory had been built in 1996. According to Khartoum state governor Abdel Rahman Al-Khidir, the explosion probably happened at the main storage facility. The resulting fire resulted in the death of two people and one person being injured. According to Sudanese opposition, the arms factory belonged to Iran's Revolutionary Guard.
Ahmed Bilal Osman, Sudanese culture and information minister, blamed this on an airstrike by four Israeli aircraft. He claimed that Sudan found unexploded Israeli rockets. Analysts say that Sudan is used as an arms-smuggling route to the Gaza Strip, which is governed by the Islamist militant organization Hamas.
According to Sunday Times, this operation "was seen as a dry run for a forthcoming attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities".
Analysis by military experts at the Satellite Sentinel Project suggested that the target may have been a batch of around 40 shipping containers, containing highly volatile cargo.

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