WordBulletin

World Bulletin/News Desk

An arms factory in Khartoum where there were blasts and a huge fire overnight was attacked by four military planes, a Sudanese minister said on Wednesday, blaming the air strike on Israel.

Witnesses had reported several explosions at the plant late on Tuesday before the fire erupted. Some people were taken to hospitals after inhaling smoke but otherwise there were no casualties, the state news agency had previously reported.

"Four military planes attacked the Yarmouk plant," Information Minister Ahmed Belal Osman told reporters in Khartoum, adding that the planes had appeared to approach the site from the east.

He blamed the attack on Israel, which Sudan has accused in the past of carrying out strikes on its territory.

In May, Sudan's government said one person was killed when a car exploded in the eastern city of Port Sudan. It said the explosion resembled a blast last year that it had blamed on an Israeli missile strike.

Israel declined to comment on the incident in May, or the 2011 blast, which killed two people. It neither admitted nor denied involvement in a similar incident in eastern Sudan in 2009.