U.S. team in Sudan to probe PM assassination attempt: minister

CAIRO (Reuters) – U.S. investigators arrived in the Sudanese capital Khartoum on Wednesday to help local authorities investigating an assassination attempt that targeted the Sudanese prime minister earlier this week, a minister said.

Authorities have launched an investigation into Monday’s assassination attempt, when a blast hit Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok’s convoy as he drove to work.

“A team of American experts arrived this morning, they will join the investigation team. We needed them because they have much more modern experiences and techniques than we have,” Information Minister Faisal Salih told a news briefing.

Sudan has arrested a number of suspects including foreigners over the attempted killing, said Saleh, without giving details.

Initial investigations showed that a homemade explosive device planted on a roadside was used in the attack, the interior ministry said on Tuesday.

Sudan’s ruling council said on Tuesday it would step up its drive to remove loyalists of former President Omar al-Bashir, a day after Hamdok escaped the assassination attempt unscathed.

They have not said who was behind it, but by reasserting that Bashir loyalists will be firmly dealt with, they have suggested possible links with old regime supporters trying to disrupt a democratic transition.

Hamdok heads a government of technocrats serving under a 39-month power-sharing deal between civilian groups and the military that was struck after Bashir was overthrown last April.

(Reporting by Omar Fahmy and Khalid Abdelaziz, writing by Mahmoud Mourad, editing by Angus MacSwan)