Sudan president castigates U.S., rallies crowd

Mob storms British embassy

By Jamal Halaby, Associated Press, 08/22/98

KHARTOUM, Sudan - Whipping up popular anger over a U.S. missile strike, President Omar el-Bashir said Saturday that Sudanese were prepared to die in a holy war.

"America is attacking us because we are guardians of Islam,'' el-Bashir told a crowd of at least 5,000 people who rallied in a square outside his offices in central Khartoum.

"We have tasted the sweet flavor of jihad (holy war) and martyrdom and what we seek now is to die for the sake of God,'' el-Bashir said.

"Go! Go! We are behind you,'' and "Death to America'' responded the throng, which included Cabinet ministers, members of parliament, trade unionists and students who were given the day off to attend the rally.

After el-Bashir's speech, some 500 protesters went to the British Embassy where they hurled stones at the building. One demonstrator climbed to the top of the embassy flagpole and cut down the Union Jack.

After the flag dropped to the ground, angry demonstrators tore it to pieces.

The British government supported the U.S. attack on a factory in north Khartoum on Thursday. Washington says the factory produced the ingredients of chemical weapons, while Khartoum says it only manufactured medicine.

One person was killed in the attack and nine others wounded.

President Clinton ordered the cruise missile strike in retaliation for the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, on Aug. 7. U.S. missiles also struck the Afghanistan camps of Muslim militant Osama bin Laden, the man whom Washington accuses of instigating the embassy bombings.

Sudan's government, beleaguered by economic failure and 15 years of war against southern insurgents, has sought to use the strikes to rally support. Another speaker at Saturday's rally launched a scathing attack on America's allies in the Middle East, such as Israel and Egypt.

"America's Arab friends and the head of the snake, Israel, are deceiving Clinton and the Americans into becoming enemies of Muslims,'' said the head of the Sudanese Students' Federation, Hamdi Hassan.

"The Israelis want to maintain the upper hand in a region that is predominantly Arab and Muslim,'' Hassan said.

One banner at the rally hit on a theme sounded time and again by Sudanese: Clinton launched the attack to draw attention from his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

It said: "No war for Monica.''

Sudan has asked the U.N. Security Council to convene an urgent meeting to consider a U.N. investigation into the factory's production and the attack. Sudanese diplomats are to address an emergency meeting of the Arab League in Cairo on Monday.

The lawyer for the owner of the pharmaceutical plant destroyed by U.S. missiles said Saturday that the plant only produced only drugs and its owner never met bin Laden.

"I think the Americans are under bad information and they are not well briefed,'' said Ghazi Suleiman, a lawyer for Salah Idris, the factory's Sudanese owner.

"I think it would have been prudent before destroying the plant to come and investigate the site.'