Sudan will welcome a US commission of inquiry to visit Khartoum to establish whether the factory attacked in a US missile strike was involved in the production of chemicals used to make VX nerve gas, the Sudanese Foreign Minister, Mr Mustafa Osman Ismail, said in Baghdad at the weekend.
"We don't even mind that an American delegation comes with a respected personality like President Carter or a delegation from Congress," he said in an interview with CNN in Baghdad.
The US has reiterated that it had credible evidence linking a pharmaceuticals plant in Sudan to chemical weapons, and said the Islamic world strongly supported its missile strikes.
Washington says it has conclusive proof the Khartoum plant made a chemical agent used in VX nerve gas but is refusing to disclose details.
President Clinton's national security adviser, Mr Sandy Berger, said yesterday: "There is no question in my mind that that facility, that factory, was used to create a chemical that was used in the manufacture of VX nerve gas and has no other commercial distribution as far as we understand."
He told CNN's Late Edition that "we have physical evidence of that fact" which is highly classified, "but we are not going to release it".
The US ambassador to the UN, Mr Bill Richardson, said Washington possessed "credible physical evidence" but he, too, declined to provide details. Mr Richardson said the US was opposed to the holding of a UN Security Council meeting today to discuss a Sudanese protest at the missile strikes, but "we are ready to debate those [issues] with anybody."
The Islamic militant millionaire, Mr Osama Bin Laden, had intended to meet other radical leaders last week at a camp that was attacked by US missiles, but called off the conference because he suspected a US raid was being planned, the London Times reported, citing Abdel-Bari Atwan, editor of the London-based al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper, as its source.
In London, the Defence Secretary, Mr George Robertson, said Britain had proof that Mr bin Laden, was involved in the two US embassy bombings that left a total of 257 dead. The Secretary of State, Ms Madeleine Albright, said the threat of further terrorist attacks from Mr bin Laden was a factor in the planning of the missile strikes. "We believe that we have a legal right to self defence," she said, citing article 51 of the UN charter.
The chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Gen Henry Shelton, said at least two new attacks were planned following the bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. "We had very reliable and convincing information that [the embassy bombings] might be only the first of two of three or even possibly four attacks," he said.
US administration officials denied that the raids on Thursday were timed to coincide with the grand jury appearance of Ms Monica Lewinsky, at the centre of a sex-and-perjury investigation centred on President Clinton.
Meanwhile the British embassy in Khartoum protested to the Sudanese government that police failed to protect the mission from rioters, a diplomat said. Sudan's Information Minister, Mr Ghazi Salahuddin, said Sudan was ready to apologise.
The Islamic Army of Aden, an unknown group, yesterday declared "total war" on all US interests in Yemen to avenge the American raids. But the Yemeni authorities denied the existence of the organisation.