Drone attacks increase the interests in the new phase of bloody civil war

Paramilitary hunters seem to have opened a new phase in Sudan’s civil war after they have been driven out of the capital, in a movement that some experts have described as a “shock and awe campaign”.

Only a few weeks after the army celebrated the recapture of Khartoem, his enemy The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) launched a series of unprecedented drone attacks on Port Sudan in the east of the country.

The attacks have led worsening Power Black -OutsAs well as city dwellers who are confronted with water shortages.

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

“I think it increases the bet quite a bit,” he added.

The barrage of attacks on the capital of wartime and the humanitarian hub indicates that the RSF has been determined and able to implement the fight despite important territorial losses.

And it has shown the growth of advanced drone warfare in Africa.

Drones have played an increasing role in the conflict that has entered his third year.

The war began as a power struggle between the Sudanese forces (SAF) and the RSF and has attracted itself in other Sudanese armed groups and foreign financiers, so that the country was deposited into what the UN calls the UN the UN.

Unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) helped the army ahead earlier this year. And the RSF escalated his own use of drones when it was pushed out of the center of Sudan, especially Khartoem, back to his traditional stronghold in the west of the country.

In recent months, the paramilitaries had performed drone strikes on critical civil infrastructure in army-driven areas, such as dams and power plants.

But their persistent attacks on Port Sudan, so far seen as a safe house for government officials, diplomats and humanitarian organizations, underlined a shift in strategy to a greater emphasis on external warfare and intended to demonstrate strength.

“The RSF tries to show that they do not have to reach Port Sudan by land in order to have an impact there,” says Sudanese political analyst Kholood Khair.

The group tries to achieve a “narrative shift” from “the triumphant SAF that Khartoem took over,” she says.

“It says to the Sudanese armed forces:” You can take Khartoem back, but you will never be able to rule it. You can have Port Sudan, but you will not be able to rule it, because we will cause a safety crisis so big for you that it will be indisputable “… they want to show that the war is not over.”

The paramilitary group has not directly tackled the drone attacks of Port Sudan. On the contrary, it has repeated its claim that the SAF is supported by Iran and accused the armed forces of aiming civil infrastructure and state institutions, in which the military strikes are mentioned on khartm and RSF-held areas in the west and south of the national war crimes.

Both parties are accused of war crimes that they have denied, but the RSF has been selected about accusations of mass rape and genocide.

The change in its tactic is possible activated by the battlefield, but is possible due to technological progress.

The RSF had previously used what is known as suicide or hanging drones, small UAVs with explosive loads that have been designed to crash in goals and perform coordinated attacks.

It seems to have used this method in Port Sudan, with the commander of the Military Zone Mahjoub Bushra of the Red Sea that describes a swarm of 11 Kamikaze drones in the first strike on a military airbase.

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

The brand of this drone is not clear. But satellite images reported by Yale Researchers and the Reuters News Agency have shown advanced UAVs at an airport in South Darfur since the beginning of the year.

The Defense Intelligence Company Janes has determined them to most likely be advanced Chinese manufactured CH-95s, capable of long-distance strikes.

Jeremy Binnie, an Africa and Midden -East Analyst at Jane’s, told the BBC that photos of what the remains of the smaller kamikaze won’s drones seem to suggest that they were probably a different version than the RSF had previously used and may be better in penetrating an anti -aircraft weather because of their shape.

A regional observer suggested that the RSF could have break through the anti-drone technology of the SAF with signal jammers attached to the drones, but warned that this was still unproven.

The airport of Zuid -Darfur in Nyala, the suspected capital and the military base of the rapid support troops, has repeatedly bombed by the SAF, which destroyed a plane there earlier this month.

Some experts see the bombing of the RSF of Port Sudan at least partly in retaliation.

The escalating drone warfare has again emphasized the role of foreign actors in the bourgeois conflict of Sudan.

“This is a technology war,” says Justin Lynch, director of Conflict Insights Group, a data analysis and research organization.

“That is why the foreign supporters are so important because it is not as if the RSF is making the weapons themselves. They get this stuff.”

The army has accused the United Arab Emirates (VAE) of supplying the paramilitary hunters of the drones and diplomatic ties with Abu Dhabi because of the attacks.

The VAE has strongly rejected the charges. It has long denied reports from UN experts, American politicians and international organizations that it offers weapons to the RSF.

But Mr. Lynch says that the evidence is overwhelming.

He was the main author of a weapons facilitated by the US Department of Foreign Affairs at the end of last year that was concluded with “almost certainty” to the RSF through images and flight patterns of airlines that were previously involved in violating a VN weapon samgo.

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

He also decided with similar almost certainty that the Iranians delivered weapons to the SAF, and he helped to verify documents provided to the Washington Post that describe the sale of drones and nuclear heads to the army by a Turkish defense company.

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

The increasing use of drones by both parties can again define the war, but it is the ability of the RSF to find strategic goals hundreds of kilometers from its positions that have rattled the region.

More than a week of daily attacks on Port Sudan, the paramilitaries met the only working international airport in the country, a power plant, various fuel depots and the airbase, which apparently try to disturb the supply of delivery of the army.

The city is also the most important gateway for auxiliary supplies and the UN has warned that this “great escalation” can further complicate the aid activities in the country and lead to large -scale civilian casualties.

“This was such a shock and awe campaign that it not only surprised SAF, I think it is also astonished, Saudi Aarabia, others who were behind SAF, and the entire war remakes,” says Mr. Boswell, adding that it closes the gap between the RSF and the army.

“The RSF is generally seen as a non-state actor,” he says “and normally such groups can collect quite a bit of a rebellious force. But the government with the Air Force is the one who always has the air capacity, and this just turns that old wise upside down.”

The development has activated comparisons with the drone warfare on long distance between Russia and Ukraine.

“These weapons have more precision, you no longer need staffed aircraft, and they are much more affordable than advanced jets exploit,” says Mr. Binnie.

“This is part of a wider trend in technological proliferation where you can see what used to be really high-end capacities used in a civil war in Africa Bezuiden de Sahara.”

The Sudanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs has warned that the attacks threaten regional safety and safety of navigation in the Red Sea and call on international actors to take “effective action against the regional sponsor of the militia”, “a reference to the VAE.

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

“This war always evolves and always changes,” he says, “but you will see that it will continue for years and decades, unless there is a serious diplomatic action to stop.”