Sudanese opposition assert production of chemical weapons in El-Shefaa factory

Sources in the Sudanese opposition confirmed yesterday that the El-Shefaa factory, destroyed last week by US attacks, was producing chemical weapons.

Mubarak El-Mahdi, the secretary-general of the opposition Democratic National Assembly (DNA), said that what is repeated by the government in Sudan concerning the factory's specialization in producing medicines is incorrect. He added in a statement from Asmara, the Eritrean capital which hosts the headquarters of the DNA, that the factory is producing components for chemical weapons in addition to manufacturing medicine.

Mahdi stated that, "The government owns the factory and it works within a program that comprises another units in Kanouri area of Khartoum," and the ruling Islamic front and its official bodies supervise this program with Iraq's support and the support of some of the extremist fronts headed by Osama Bin Laden.

He added that the work in the program is conducted by Iraqi, Asian and Eastern European experts."

Meanwhile, the Arab Organization for Human Rights expressed yesterday in a press statement its anxiety over the US military's shelling of a Sudanese medicine factory and an Afghan complex.

The organization asked the UN Security Council to condemn this aggression and respond to the Sudanese call to send a fact-finding mission to Khartoum to reveal the truth about the nature of the factory as well as committing the U.S. to compensate the victims.

The organization had condemned this attack in a previous statement and described it as state terrorism.