KHARTOUM, Sudan -- A missile possibly fired by Sudanese rebels hit a military transport plane carrying the country's defense minister and army commander, but no one was injured in the incident over southern Sudan, military officials said Saturday.
The Sudanese military high command said in a statement the pilot managed to land the Hercules C-130 aircraft safely after it was hit Thursday evening by a Soviet-made, shoulder-fired SA-7 missile.
Although the statement did not say who fired the missile, also known as SAM-7, observers believed it was launched by rebels who have warned they would down any plane flying over the 'war zone' of southern Sudan.
The statement said Defense Minister Gen. Abdel Magid Hamid Khalil and Army Commander in Chief Fathi Ahmed Ali were in the aircraft, returning from a tour of inspection of the military zone in the southern Bahr el Ghazal province.
The plane was hit shortly after takeoff from the Bahr el Ghazal provincial capital of Wau, 600 miles southwest of Khartoum, the statement said.
It said the pilot managed to land safely in the city of Wau, 650 miles southwest of Khartoum, and no one was injured. But the missile damaged the plane's engines and control systems.
There was no immediate comment from the Sudanese Peoples' Liberation Front, a Christian-led southern Sudanese rebel movement fighting for five years against troops loyal to the Moslem-backed Khartoum government.
Earlier in the week, the second largest party in the country's ruling coalition -- the Democratic Unionist Party -- signed a peace agreement with the front. The agreement, which does not call for an immediate cease-fire, still must be ratified by the Sudanese government.
Prime Minister Sadiq al Mahdi has indicated his Umma party -- the largest in the governing coalition -- may back at least some of the clauses in the agreement.
The smaller but influential fundamentalist Islamic National Front or NIF said it would reject the peace plan. The NIF objects to a clause calling for suspension of Islamic law, known as Sharia, which calls for punishments such as amputations and public floggings.
