Cook withdraws British envoys from Sudan

THE FOREIGN Secretary, Robin Cook, yesterday said Britain was withdrawing its ambassador to Sudan and told other Britons in the country to leave, as tension continued over the American air strike on Khartoum.

Two suspects in the bombing of the United States embassy in Kenya, including one who told the FBI the attackers intended to be martyrs, were yesterday brought to the US for trial. The bombing of the US embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, on 7 August and an almost simultaneous one at the US embassy in Tanzania, killed 247 people, including 12 Americans, and injured more than 5,000.

According to the FBI, Khalid Salim allegedly admitted tossing a grenade at a guard stationed outside the Nairobi embassy and said the "operation was supposed to be a martyrdom operation, which he did not expect to survive".

Following his arrest two days after the bombing by Kenyan officials, he was turned over to the FBI. Court papers said he told the agency he was trained in explosives, hijacking and kidnapping in camps in Afghanistan, including camps affiliated with the Islamic militant financier Osama bin Laden.

A second suspect, Mohammed Saddiq Odeh, was also flown to New York. Mr Odeh was arrested on the day of the bombing in Karachi.

Mr Cook insisted yesterday that Britain still stood firmly behind the US in the row over the air strikes on Sudan and Afghanistan last Thursday and said he was "surprised" by reports that the factory in Khartoum may have been producing only medicines. The Foreign Secretary is at the centre of speculation that he had misgivings about the strike on the El Shifa factory. The Cabinet is reported to be split, after the failure of Washington to provide more convincing evidence that El Shifa was producing chemical weapons. Sudan has asked the UN to investigate.