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 |  Subject: U.S. Diplomat Killed in Sudan-YaY!!!  Tue Jan 01, 2008 6:06 pm | |
| NAIROBI, Kenya — An American diplomat in Sudan was shot and killed early Tuesday as he was coming home from a New Year’s Eve party in Khartoum, the capital.
In Washington, the United States Agency for International Development identified the victim as one of its officials, John Granville, 33, originally of Buffalo, N.Y. American officials said it was “too early to tell” if the shooting was random or planned, but Sudanese officials said the circumstances were suspicious, especially because gun crime is rare in Khartoum, considered one of the safest cities in Africa.
The United Nations had recently warned its staff in Sudan that there was credible evidence that a terrorist cell was in the country and planning to attack foreigners.
According to Western officials, Mr. Granville left a New Year’s Eve party at the British Embassy around 2:30 a.m. and headed to his home in an upscale neighborhood in central Khartoum. Shortly before he arrived, a car pulled up next to him and 17 shots were fired, Sudanese officials said. Mr. Granville’s driver, a Sudanese employee of the American Embassy, was killed instantly, and he was shot in the neck and chest. He was rushed to the hospital and died several hours later. A Sudanese government official said the attack appeared well-planned and involved two gunmen who exited their car together, with one of them shooting Mr. Granville and the other shooting the driver. Walter Braunohler, a spokesman for the American Embassy in Khartoum, said he could not comment on the circumstances because the shooting was under investigation.
A spokesman for Sudan’s Foreign Ministry said American and Sudanese law enforcement agents were working closely together to investigate.
“We do not know why this happened,” said Ali Sadiq, the Sudanese government spokesman. “ All options are possible.”
The attack came just hours after President Bush signed a bill that makes it easier for mutual funds and other investment managers to sell stakes in companies that do business in Sudan. The bill is aimed at Sudan’s oil and defense industries, in particular, and is part of the broader campaign to put pressure on the Sudanese government to end the bloodshed in Darfur, a troubled region in western Sudan where more than 200,000 people have died.
The United States has urged the Sudanese government to cooperate better with the peacekeeping mission in Darfur, and on Monday, formal authority was transferred from the current African Union force to a joint United Nations-African Union mission.
Mr. Granville had served in Sudan as well as Nairobi, and had distributed short-wave radios to give rural residents a link to Usaid broadcasts and to increase civic involvement. A photo on the agency’s Web site shows Mr. Granville standing amid a crowd of African women, each holding a radio.
Several western officials in the country said the attack that killed him and his driver was reminiscent of the killing of Laurence Foley, an American aid official who was shot outside his home in Amman, Jordan, in 2002. Two years later, a military court in Jordan sentenced to death eight Islamic militants linked to Al Qaeda — six of them in absentia — for his assassination.
Terrorist attacks have also been a fear in Sudan, a country that has been a hotbed of Islamist extremism and where Osama Bin Laden once lived. Early last year, United Nations officials issued several warnings to diplomats and aid workers in Sudan about a possible terrorist strike. The warnings put the staff on high alert and identified the American Embassy as one of the most likely targets.
On Tuesday night, the American Embassy sent out an e-mail message to Americans in Sudan notifying them about the attack on the diplomat.
“Terrorist groups continue to seek opportunities to carry out attacks against U.S. interests,” the message said, repeating earlier warnings. “U.S. citizens should be aware of the risk of indiscriminate attacks on civilian targets in public places, which include tourist sites and locations where Westerners are known to congregate, and commercial operations associated with U.S. or Western interests.”
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