Drones attacks raise bets in a new phase of bloody civil war

The paramilitary fighters seemed to have discovered a new phase in the Sudan Civil War after being expelled from the capital, in a move that some experts have identified as “shock and awe.”

Just weeks after the army celebrates the recovery of Khartoum, its enemy of the Fast Support Forces (RSF) launches a series of unprecedented strikes with Port Sudan drones in the eastern part of the country.

Attacks have led to Worsening of power eclipsesas well as the residents of the city, facing shortness of water.

“This is a level of projection of power in this region that we have not yet seen,” says Alan Boswell, Africa Africa expert at the International Crisis Group.

“I think it’s raising your bets a lot,” he added.

The barrage of attacks on the capital of wartime and the Humanitarian Center signals that RSF has been designated and is able to continue the fight, despite significant territorial losses.

And she showed the growth of an advanced drone war in Africa.

The drones played an increasingly bigger role in the conflict, which entered their third year.

The war began as a struggle for power between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and RSF and is attracted to other Sudanese armed groups and foreign supporters, stabbing the country in what the UN calls the world’s oldest humanitarian crisis.

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) helped the army to progress earlier this year. And RSF escalates its own use of drones as it was pushed out of central Sudan, especially Hardum, back to its traditional fortress in the western part of the country.

In recent months, paramilitary has strengthened the impact of critical civil infrastructure drones in army -controlled areas. This continued on Wednesday night with attacks by three power plants in the city of Omdurman, located through the Nile River from Khartoum. The damage caused a widespread interruption of electricity in the metropolitan region.

But it is RSF’s sustainable strikes for Port Sudan that have been seen as a safe asylum of civil servants, diplomats and humanitarian organizations, emphasizing the displacement of the strategy to more emphasis on the remote war and aimed to demonstrate power.

“RSF is trying to show that they do not need to reach Port Sudan on the ground so that they can have an impact there,” says Sudanese political analyst Hollud Hair.

The group is trying to achieve the “story of the story” away from the “triumphal SAF that has taken over Hardum,” she says.

“It is called the Sudanese armed forces:” You can take Hardum back, but you will never be able to manage it. You can have a port of Sudan, but you will not be able to manage it because we will cause a security crisis for you so big that it will be unlawful “… they want to not be thought that war is not over until they say so.”

The paramilitary group did not turn directly to the attacks of drones in Port Sudan. Rather, she reiterates that SAF is supported by Iran and blames the Armed Forces for targeting civil infrastructure and state institutions, calling on military strikes in the Hardum and RSF regions in the West and south of military crimes in the country.

Both sides are charged with war crimes that have denied, but RSF has been separated from allegations of mass rape and genocide.

The change in its tactics may be caused by the need for the battlefield, but it is possible due to technological progress.

The RSF has previously used what is known as suicide or a lotting drones, small BLGs with explosive useful loads that are designed to collapse into targets and can carry out coordinated attacks.

He seems to have deployed this method in Port Sudan, with the commander of the Red Sea military zone Majub Bushra describes a swarm of 11 drones on a kamikaze at the first blow to a military air base.

He said the army had removed them, but they turned out to be a tactical distraction to divert attention from a strategic drone that successfully hit the base.

The brand of this drone is not clear. But the satellite images reported by Yale researchers and Reuters news agency showed advanced BLA at an airport in South Darfur since the beginning of the year.

The Janes Defense Intelligence Company has most likely identified them to be sophisticated Chinese CH-95, capable of long distances.

Jeremy Binny, analyzer of Africa and the Middle East in Jane, told the BBC that the photos of what seems to be the remains of the smaller kamikaze drones, suggest that they are probably a different version than RSF has used before and may be better in air force penetration due to their shape.

A regional observer suggested that the RSF had been able to disrupt the SAF drone technology with signal threads attached to the drones, but warned it was still unproven.

South Darfur Airport in Nyala, the alleged capital and a military base of the rapid support forces, has been repeatedly bombed by SAF, which destroyed an airplane there this month.

Some experts see the RSF bombing in Port Sudan at least partly as revenge.

The escalating drone war again emphasized the role of foreign participants in Sudan’s civil conflict.

“This is a war of technology,” says Justin Lynch, Managing Director at Conflict Insights Group, an organization for data analysis and research organization.

“That is why foreign supporters are so important because it is not like RSF to make the weapons themselves. They are given these things.”

The army has accused the United Arab Emirates (UAE) of delivering paramilitary drones with drones and reducing diplomatic ties with Abu Dhabi for attacks.

The UAE severely dismissed the allegations. He has long denied reports from UN experts, US politicians and international organizations that he is providing RSF weapons.

But G -n Lynch says the evidence is huge.

He was a leading author of a report funded by the US State Department at the end of last year, which ended with “close to security,” the UAE facilitated RSF weapons by watching airlines and models of the UN Brows.

He told the BBC that it would be surprising if Emiratis did not help to deliver the drones used in Port Sudan attacks.

He also identified with a similar almost liquid that the Iranians supplied SAF weapons and he helped certify documents provided to Washington Post, which detailed the sale of drones and warheads of the Turkish Defense Company.

Iran did not respond to the allegations. Turkish officials have denied their participation.

The increasing use of drones on both sides may be the redeflation of the war, but the ability of RSF to achieve strategically hundreds of kilometers from its positions that shook the region.

During a week, daily attacks on Port Sudan, the paramilitary jurors struck the only working international airport in the country, a power plant, several fuel depots and the air base, apparently trying to break the army delivery lines.

The city is also the main port for assistance for help and the UN has warned that this “major escalation” can further complicate operations for help in the country and lead to large -scale civil casualties.

“It was such a shock and awe that not only stunned SAF. I think it is also stunned Egypt, Saudi Arabia, others behind SAF, and will process the whole war,” says G -n Boswell, adding that it is closing the gap in the air force between the RSF and the army.

“RSF is widely regarded as a non -state actor,” he says, “and usually groups like this can gather a lot of uprisings. But the government with the Air Force is what always has air capacity, and that just turns all those old gadgets to his head.”

Development has caused comparisons to the long -term war with drones between Russia and Ukraine.

“These weapons have a greater accuracy. You no longer need a piloted aircraft and they are much more accessible than the operation of complex jets,” says G -N Bini.

“This is part of a broader tendency in technological distribution, where you can see what was really high-end opportunities used in the Subsahara Civil War in Africa.”

The Sudan Foreign Ministry warned that the attacks were threatening the regional security and safety of navigation in the Red Sea, calling for international participants to take “effective action against the regional sponsor of the police”, referring to the UAE.

Lynch believes that only an agreement between the UAE and the Sudanese army will end the war.

“This war is always evolving, always changing,” he says, “but you will see that it will last for years and decades, unless there are serious diplomatic actions to stop it.”