The Fundamentalist-Moslem ideology which guides the Sudanese regime, as well as Iranian assistance and training, have made Sudan a natural base for the activities of many terror organizations.

There are apparently hundreds of activists in Sudan from the Middle East and Africa, who receive military training in order to return to their countries, carry out attacks, and create anarchy with the intention of taking over their country’s institutions and instituting an Islamic regime.

The Sudanese involvement in terror manifested itself, inter alia, by involving Iranian activists in the attempted terror attacks in crowded New York centers in the beginning of 1993. Within this framework, we must point out that:

• The head of the terror squad which planned the showcase attack in New York, Sidik Ibrahim Ali, as well as other members of the squad, were Sudanese.
   
• Several arrested terrorists confessed to their interrogators that they were trained at Sudanese terrorist camps by Iranian revolutionaries and Hizballah activists from Lebanon.
   
• It is also possible that the activists who were arrested were supposed to receive operational assistance from Sudanese diplomats at the U.N. Building in New York.

Sudan, as a country bordering Egypt, serves as a convenient base for training Egyptian terrorists and as an exit base for attacks in Egypt. Interrogation of Egyptian terrorists returning from Afghanistan revealed that Khartoum is the main link in the planning stage of terror attacks against Egypt.

Sudan is an important factor in Iran’s strategy and serves as a bridgehead for the penetration of Iranian Fundamentalism into Africa. Co-operation between Iran and the regime of Omar el Bashir in Sudan commenced several years ago.

The military-political involvement of Teheran in Sudan became deeply entrenched during 1992. This involvement was noticeable in the signing of military and economic agreements between the two countries and included, inter alia, military and economic assistance within the framework of rehabilitating the Sudanese armed forces.

During 1993, Iran transferred arms to Fundamentalist groups in Sudan via the General Secretary of the Iranian-Sudanese Friendship Association – Amin Benani. With Benani’s blessing, the Sudanese army was armed and equipped with the sole purpose of strengthening it to deal with the rebels in Southern Sudan under the command of John Gering.

The assistance which Sudan gives to the various terror organizations, as well as its possible involvement in the attempted attacks in the U.S. in 1993, have caused the U.S. to include Sudan in the list of “countries supporting terrorism” and, as a result, to impose commercial and economic sanctions on it. This U.S. decision has encouraged a Sudanese effort to improve its international image and, at the same time, to bridge its impaired relations with Egypt and to deny all involvement in terror activity.

It is possible that the assistance given by Sudan to France in the extradition of Carlos, was intended to score points for the Sudanese in the West and to help them in removing their name from the list of “countries supporting terrorism”. A number of publications connect the release of two Iranians from a French prison at the beginning of 1994 to this affair Yhe two were jailed for murdering a member of the Iranian Opposition residing in Switzerland. It is claimed that their release ensured Iran’s tacit assistance in capturing Carlos in Sudan.

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