KHARTOUM (REUTERS) - An attacker with a knife killed two soldiers guarding a gate at Sudan's presidential palace before being shot dead by other troops on Saturday, the president's press secretary said.

President Omar Hassan al-Bashir was not in Khartoum's Republican Palace at the time of the attack, press secretary Emad Ahmed told Reuters "A little while ago someone attacked soldiers who guarded one of the gates of the palace and (the soldiers) fired on him,"he said.