{"id":33180,"date":"2024-09-22T02:04:55","date_gmt":"2024-09-21T23:04:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/?p=33180"},"modified":"2024-09-22T02:04:55","modified_gmt":"2024-09-21T23:04:55","slug":"how-a-u-s-ally-uses-aid-as-a-cover-in-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/2024\/09\/22\/how-a-u-s-ally-uses-aid-as-a-cover-in-war\/","title":{"rendered":"How a U.S. Ally Uses Aid as a Cover in War"},"content":{"rendered":"

The United Arab Emirates is expanding a covert campaign to back a winner in Sudan\u2019s civil war. Waving the banner of the Red Crescent, it is also smuggling weapons and deploying drones<\/strong><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

By Declan Walsh and Christoph Koettl<\/strong><\/p>\n

Declan Walsh reported from Sudan, Chad and Switzerland. Christoph Koettl analyzed satellite images, flight records and other materials<\/em><\/p>\n

The drones soar over the vast deserts along the Sudanese border, guiding weapons convoys that smuggle illicit arms to fighters accused of widespread atrocities and ethnic cleansing.
\nThey hover over a besieged city at the center of Sudan\u2019s terrible famine, supporting a ruthless paramilitary force that has bombed hospitals, looted food shipments and torched thousands of homes, aid groups say.
\nYet the drones are flying out of a base where the United Arab Emirates says it is running a humanitarian effort for the Sudanese people \u2014 part of what it calls its \u201curgent priority\u201d to save innocent lives and stave off starvation in Africa\u2019s largest war.
\nThe Emirates is playing a deadly double game in Sudan, a country shredded by one of the world\u2019s most catastrophic civil wars.
\nEager to cement its role as a regional kingmaker, the wealthy Persian Gulf petrostate is expanding its covert campaign to back a winner in Sudan, funneling money, weapons and, now, powerful drones to fighters rampaging across the country, according to officials, internal diplomatic memos and satellite images analyzed by The New York Times.
\nAll the while, the Emirates is presenting itself as a champion of peace, diplomacy and international aid. It is even using one of the world\u2019s most famous relief symbols \u2014 the Red Crescent, the counterpart of the Red Cross \u2014 as a cover for its secret operation to fly drones into Sudan and smuggle weapons to fighters, satellite images show and American officials say.
\nThe war in Sudan, a sprawling gold-rich nation with nearly 500 miles of Red Sea coastline, has been fueled by a plethora of foreign nations, like Iran and Russia. They are supplying arms to the warring sides, hoping to tilt the scales for profit or their own strategic gain \u2014 while the people of Sudan are caught in the crossfire.
\nBut the Emirates is playing the largest and most consequential role of all, officials say, publicly pledging to ease Sudan\u2019s suffering even as it secretly inflames it.
\nRecently arrived Sudanese refugees from the Darfur region, in line to receive food on the outskirts of Adr\u00e9, a town in eastern Chad, in July.
\nCredit…
\nIvor Prickett for The New York Times
\nStarvation haunts Sudan. Famine was officially declared last month after nearly 18 months of fighting, which has killed tens of thousands and scattered at least 10 million people in the world\u2019s worst displacement crisis, the United Nations says. Aid groups call it a calamity of \u201chistoric proportions.\u201d
\nThe Emirates says it has made \u201cabsolutely clear\u201d that it is not arming or supporting \u201cany of the warring parties\u201d in Sudan. To the contrary, it says, it is \u201calarmed by the rapidly accelerating humanitarian catastrophe\u201d and pushing for an \u201cimmediate cease-fire.\u201d
\nBut for more than a year, the Emirates has been secretly bolstering the Rapid Support Forces, or R.S.F., the paramilitary group fighting Sudan\u2019s military for control of Africa\u2019s third-largest country.
\nMap shows areas of conflict in Sudan.<\/p>\n

SUDAN
\nCHAD
\nDetail area
\nNile
\nAmdjarass
\nU.A.E. hospital
\nand drone system
\nKhartoum
\nCapital and
\nmain focus
\nof fighting
\nEl Fasher
\nUnder siege
\nby R.S.F.
\nBlue
\nNile
\nDARFUR
\nREGION
\nWhite Nile
\n100 MILES
\nBy The New York Times
\nA Times investigation last year detailing the Emirati weapons smuggling operation was confirmed by U.N. investigators in January, when they cited \u201ccredible\u201d evidence that the Emirates was breaking a two-decade U.N. arms embargo in Sudan.
\nNow, the Emiratis are amplifying their covert campaign. Powerful Chinese-made drones, by far the largest deployed in Sudan\u2019s war, are being flown from an airport across the border in Chad that the Emirates has expanded into a well-equipped, military-style airfield.
\nHangars have been built and a drone control station installed, satellite images show. Many of the cargo planes that have landed at the airport during the war previously transported weapons for the Emirates to other conflict zones, like Libya, where the Emiratis have also been accused of breaching an arms embargo, a Times analysis of flight tracking data found.
\nAmerican officials say the Emiratis are now using the airport to fly advanced military drones to provide the R.S.F. with battlefield intelligence, and to escort weapons shipments to fighters in Sudan \u2014 to keep an eye out for ambushes.
\nThrough an analysis of satellite images, The Times identified the type of drone being used: the Wing Loong 2, a Chinese model often compared to the MQ-9 Reaper of the U.S. Air Force.
\nThe images show an apparent munitions bunker at the airport and a Wing Loong ground control station beside the runway \u2014 only about 750 yards from an Emirati-run hospital that has treated wounded R.S.F. fighters.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Civil War in Sudan<\/p>\n

Fighting between two military factions has thrown Sudan into chaos.
\nWhat to Know: Two generals \u2014 one backed by Sudan\u2019s army, the other by a powerful paramilitary group \u2014 have been vying for power in the African country in a conflict that began in 2023.
\nCalls to Protect Civilians: A U.N. fact-finding mission called for an international peacekeeping force to protect civilians in Sudan. The war has caused the world\u2019s largest displacement crisis.
\nPeace Talks: American-led negotiations at a Swiss ski resort secured famine relief for needy areas but failed to broker a cease-fire, or even to get both sides to the table, after Sudan\u2019s military refused to show up.
\nA Border Crossing Reopens: Accused of blocking food aid for its starving people, Sudan\u2019s military reopened the main border crossing with Chad, which it had closed for six months to U.N. relief trucks.
\nThe Wing Loong can fly for 32 hours, has a range of 1,000 miles and can carry up to a dozen missiles or bombs. So far, the drones do not seem to be conducting airstrikes of their own in Sudan, officials say, but are providing surveillance and identifying targets on chaotic battlefields.
\nThat makes them \u201ca significant force multiplier,\u201d said J. Michael Dahm, a senior fellow at the Virginia-based Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.
\nAfter taking off from the base, the drones may in fact be piloted remotely from Emirati soil, experts and officials say. Recently, they have been detected patrolling the skies above the embattled Sudanese city of El Fasher, where people are starving and surrounded by the R.S.F. The city is home to nearly two million people, and fears are rising that the war is on the precipice of even more atrocities.
\nAmerican officials have been pressuring all the war\u2019s combatants to stop the carnage.
\nVice President Kamala Harris confronted the leader of the Emirates, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, over his country\u2019s support of the R.S.F. when the two met in December, according to officials briefed on the exchange. President Biden called this week for an end to the \u201csenseless war,\u201d warning that the R.S.F.\u2019s brutal, monthslong siege on El Fasher \u201chas become a full-on assault.\u201d
\nThe crisis is expected to come up again when he and Ms. Harris host the Emirati leader at the White House for the first time on Monday.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s got to stop,\u201d John F. Kirby, a White House spokesman, said of the siege.
\n\u2018They Can\u2019t Lie to Us Anymore\u2019
\nBoth sides in Sudan\u2019s civil war have been accused of war crimes, including brutal assaults filmed by the fighters themselves.
\nThe war erupted in 2023, when a power struggle between Sudan\u2019s military and the R.S.F. \u2014 a fighting force it helped create \u2014 erupted into gunfire on the streets of the capital and quickly enveloped the nation.
\nSudanese military planes have bombed civilians, while rights groups accuse the R.S.F. of ethnic cleansing and indiscriminate shelling that has destroyed hospitals, homes and aid warehouses.
\nIn El Fasher, Doctors Without Borders has accused the military of bombing a children\u2019s hospital, and R.S.F. troops of plundering food intended for a camp of 400,000 starving people.
\nIvor Prickett for The New York Times
\nAid workers are hoping to airdrop food into the city, which Toby Harward, the top U.N. official for Darfur, likened to \u201chell on earth.\u201d
\nThe Emirates insists it is simply trying halt the war and help its victims. It has provided $230 million in aid and delivered 10,000 tons of relief supplies, and it played a prominent role in recent American-led peace talks in Switzerland.
\n\u201cThe U.A.E. remains committed to supporting the people of Sudan in restoring peace,\u201d Lana Nusseibeh, an Emirati minister for foreign affairs, said afterward.
\nSenior American officials have privately tried to coax the Emirates to drop its covert operations, bluntly confronting it with American intelligence on what the Gulf state is doing inside Sudan, said five American officials with knowledge of the conversations.
\nAfter Vice President Harris raised American objections to the arms smuggling with Sheikh Mohammed in December, the Emirati leader offered what some officials considered a tacit acknowledgment.
\nWhile not admitting direct support to the R.S.F., Sheikh Mohammed said he owed the paramilitary group\u2019s leader, Lt. Gen. Mohamed Hamdan, for sending troops to fight alongside the Emirates in the war in Yemen, according to two American officials briefed on the exchange.
\nSheikh Mohammed also said he viewed the R.S.F. as a bulwark against Islamist political movements in the region, which the Emirati royal family has long considered a threat to its authority, the officials said. (The Emirati government did not respond to questions about the conversation.)
\n\u201cThey can\u2019t lie to us anymore, because they know that we know,\u201d said one American official who, like others, was not authorized to speak publicly about the intelligence.
\nRelief organizations are particularly incensed with the Emirates, accusing it of running \u201ca Potemkin aid operation\u201d to disguise its support to the R.S.F., according to Jeremy Konyndyk, president of Refugees International and a former Obama and Biden administration official.
\n\u201cThey want it both ways,\u201d he said of the Emiratis. \u201cThey want to act like a rogue, supporting their militia client and turning a blind eye to whatever they do with their weapons. And they want to appear like a constructive, rules-abiding member of the international system.\u201d
\nSudan\u2019s civil war has turned the country, perched strategically on the Red Sea, into a global free-for-all. Iran has supplied armed drones to the Sudanese military, which has fought alongside Ukrainian special forces in the capital, Khartoum. Egypt has also sided with the military.
\nRussia has played both sides. Wagner mercenaries initially supplied missiles to the R.S.F., United Nations inspectors found. More recently, officials say, the Kremlin has tilted to the military, offering it weapons in exchange for naval access to Sudan\u2019s Red Sea coast.
\nThe Houthis of Yemen sent shiploads of weapons to Sudan\u2019s military, at Iran\u2019s behest, and gas-rich Qatar sent six Chinese warplanes, American officials say. (Qatar and the Houthis denied sending military aid.)
\nThe Emirates has sent an array of weapons as well, officials have concluded.
\n\u201cThe delivery of drones, howitzers, multiple rocket launchers and MANPADS to the R.S.F. by the U.A.E. has helped it neutralize the air superiority\u201d of Sudan\u2019s military, the European Union ambassador to Sudan, Aidan O\u2019Hara, wrote in February in a confidential memo obtained by The Times. (A MANPAD, or Man-Portable Air Defense System, is a type of antiaircraft missile.)
\nThe memo contained other startling assertions: that Saudi Arabia has given money to Sudan\u2019s military, which used it to buy Iranian drones; that as many as 200,000 foreign mercenaries were fighting alongside the R.S.F.; and that Wagner mercenaries had trained the R.S.F. to use the antiaircraft missiles supplied by the Emirates.
\nThe Emirati role appears to be part of a broader push into Africa. Last year, it announced $45 billion in investments across the continent, analysts say, nearly twice as much as China. Recently, it has expanded into a new business: war.
\nIt turned the tide of Ethiopia\u2019s civil war in 2021 by supplying armed drones to the prime minister at a crucial point in the fight, ultimately helping him emerge victorious. Now it appears to be trying to repeat the same feat in Sudan with the R.S.F.
\nThe Arms Pipeline
\nLast year, when cargo planes began to land at the airport in Amdjarass, 600 miles east of the Chadian capital, Ndjamena, the Emirates said it had come to establish a field hospital for Sudanese refugees.
\nBut within months, American officials discovered that the $20 million hospital quietly treated R.S.F. fighters, and that the cargo planes also carried weapons that were later smuggled to fighters inside Sudan.
\nThe Times analysis of satellite images and flight records showed that the Emiratis set up the drone system at the same time they were promoting their humanitarian operation.
\nEmirates Red Crescent
\nDuring a lengthy phone call in early May with his Emirati counterpart, President Biden\u2019s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, cited American intelligence that had been declassified so that it could be shared with a foreign official. The evidence documented Emirati military support to the R.S.F., two American officials briefed on the exchange said.
\nBut the American candor appears to have had little impact. The Emirates has only doubled down on its support to the R.S.F. in recent months, American officials and witnesses in Chad say.
\nFewer cargo flights now land at Amdjarass airport, where they can be easily detected, but a greater proportion of supplies arrives by truck, often along routes that bypass major cities and towns, officials say.
\nThe New York Times has been following the arrival of aircraft, including Emirati cargo planes, at the airfield in Amdjarass, Chad, for a year.<\/p>\n

Aug. 8, 2023
\nJuly 15, 2023
\nMay 17, 2024
\nJuly 6, 2024
\nTraces of Emirati-supplied weapons are also being found on the battlefield. Human Rights Watch recently identified Serbian-made missiles, fired from an unidentified drone, that it said were originally sold to the Emirates.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s very clear: The U.A.E. is sending money, the U.A.E. is sending weapons,\u201d said Succ\u00e8s Masra, a former prime minister of Chad.
\nAfter complaints from Western officials, he said, he told his nation\u2019s president, Mahamat Idriss D\u00e9by, that allowing the Emirates to funnel weapons through Chad was a \u201chuge mistake.\u201d
\nNothing changed. The Emirates promised Mr. D\u00e9by a $1.5 billion loan, nearly as big as Chad\u2019s $1.8 billion national budget a year earlier.
\nThe Emirates supports the R.S.F. in other ways, too. Earlier this year, an Emirati private jet carried the paramilitary force\u2019s leader, General Hamdan, on a tour of six African countries, where he was treated like a head of state.
\nDubai, one of the seven emirates that make up the nation, is the hub of the R.S.F.\u2019s business empire, which is anchored in gold trading. The U.S. Treasury has imposed sanctions on what it calls an R.S.F. \u201cfront company\u201d and recently listed seven Emirati companies under investigation on suspicion of being linked to the paramilitary group.
\nGeneral Hamdan\u2019s 34-year-old brother, Algoney Hamdan, has lived in Dubai since 2014 and was singled out by American sanctions. Yet he is now an interlocutor for stuttering peace efforts. Speaking in Switzerland during last month\u2019s talks, Mr. Hamdan brushed off the U.S. measures against him.
\n\u201cIf it brings peace to Sudan, they can sanction as many companies as they want,\u201d he said.
\nMr. Hamdan conceded that some R.S.F. troops had committed abuses, but insisted the Emirates was not backing the R.S.F.
\n\u201cThere is no proof of anything,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s just false propaganda.\u201d
\nA Cherished Symbol of Aid
\nThe Emirati operation in Chad has deeply worried the Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, one of the world\u2019s oldest and most venerable aid movements.
\nIt learned only from news reports that the Emirates Red Crescent had established a hospital in Amdjarass, said Tommaso Della Longa, a Red Cross spokesman. The Emirates Red Crescent, which is funded by the Emirati government, did not inform the international federation, as it should have, he added.
\nThe Emiratis eagerly touted their largess. The government\u2019s publicity showed workers unloading cargo pallets and treating patients under the Red Crescent logo \u2014 an emblem dating back to the 1870s that is legally protected under the Geneva Conventions. Misuse of that symbol is a potential war crime.
\nWorried that its reputation for neutrality was at risk, the Red Cross sent fact-finding missions to Chad in 2023 and 2024, \u201cto better understand\u201d what the Emiratis were doing under the Red Crescent banner in Amdjarass, Mr. Della Longa said.
\nThey found few answers.
\nWhen the officials arrived, they were turned away from the Emirati field hospital for unspecified \u201csecurity reasons,\u201d Mr. Della Longa said. The officials eventually left Chad without setting foot in the hospital.
\nThe Emirates Red Crescent did not respond to questions.
\nMr. Konyndyk, the Refugees International official, said it was \u201cunheard-of\u201d for an aid organization to bar its own officials from visiting a hospital that supposedly treats refugees.
\n\u201cThe Emirates seems to be instrumentalizing the Red Crescent as cover for well-documented arms shipments to a militia that is actively committing atrocities in Darfur.\u201d
\nIn June, Emirati officials said they had treated nearly 30,000 patients, and were looking to expand the hospital, but people in Amdjarass say the hospital opens for just four hours a day.
\nThe Emirates opened a second field hospital in Chad, in the city of Ab\u00e9ch\u00e9 in April. When The Times visited the 80-bed facility in July, doctors readily offered a tour of its well-equipped wards, which the hospital\u2019s director, Dr. Khalid Mohammed, said received as many as 250 patients every day.
\nA private Emirati company ran the hospital, and it had no connection with the Red Cross or Crescent, he said. But the hospital closed at 4 p.m. each day, limiting the medical services it could provide.
\nThe Red Cross says it is still trying to figure out what the Emiratis are up to.
\n\u201cThe process is not finished,\u201d Mr. Della Longa, the Red Cross spokesman, said of the inquiry into the Amdjarass hospital. \u201cWe want to get the bottom of it.\u201d
\nCounterbalancing Iran
\nAs Sudan plunges deeper into what many experts called the world\u2019s biggest humanitarian crisis, American officials say they are more sharply focused on the conflict than ever.
\nAntony J. Blinken, the secretary of state, organized last month\u2019s peace talks in Switzerland despite their low chance of halting the fighting.
\nAnd Mr. Sullivan, the national security adviser, intervened directly with officials from Saudi Arabia when they appeared to be obstructing talks, said three people with knowledge of the interactions.
\nBut the Biden administration is divided on a fundamental question: How hard should it push the Emirates?
\nWhen the U.S. envoy to Sudan, Tom Perriello, suggested on a podcast on Sept. 4 that he supported a boycott of the Emirates by the rapper Macklemore, who recently canceled a Dubai showover the Emirates\u2019 role in Sudan, it provoked a furious private reaction from Emirati officials, several officials said.
\n\u201cI sure didn\u2019t have Macklemore as hero for Sudan on my bingo card,\u201d Mr. Perriello said on the podcast.
\nSome senior White House and State Department officials felt Mr. Perriello had gone too far, while others cringed at the idea of cowing to the Emiratis for the sake of good relations.
\nThe dispute reflected the limits of challenging the Emirates, a country the United States relies on for many global priorities. The Emirates is a staunch American ally against Iran, a signatory of the Abraham Accords to establish diplomatic relations with Israel, a potential player in postwar Gaza, and it has even facilitated prisoner swaps between Ukraine and Russia.
\nThe Gulf state has shrugged off international censure before, notably over its role in Yemen, but it appears to be sensitive to growing criticism over Sudan.
\nWhen European diplomats considered last February whether the nation \u201cwould have any qualms about the slaughter and devastation\u201d caused by its actions in Sudan, the confidential E.U. memo said, the diplomats concluded that the Emiratis \u201cwould be more concerned about any damage to their reputation rather than any sense of moral culpability.\u201d
\nBut whether the Emiratis would be willing to cede Sudan to one of the many rival powers piling into the war, especially Iran, is another matter entirely.
\nThe prospect of Iran gaining a foothold on the Western shores of the Red Sea has clearly unnerved the Emirates and several other Arab countries involved in Sudan, officials say.
\nThat sense of alarm is driving a proxy war and prompting rival powers to pour ever more weapons into Sudan, pushing the tottering state toward complete collapse.
\nThe Emiratis say Sudanese refugees are grateful for the Emirati help. But the anger among others is growing.
\nLast week, when Ms. Nusseibeh, the Emirati minister who took part in peace talks in Switzerland, visited one of the hospitals in Chad to showcase her country\u2019s good works, she was confronted by an infuriated Sudanese refugee.
\n\u201cYou know very well that you ignited this war!\u201d yelled a man during a public meeting, in an exchange that quickly spread on social media. \u201cWe don\u2019t want anything from you, except that you stop it.\u201d
\nSpeaking by phone, the man, who asked to be identified as Suliman out of fear of reprisals, said he hadn\u2019t been able to contain himself.
\nR.S.F. brutality had forced him to flee Sudan a year earlier, joining 800,000 refugees now in Chad, he said. So when the Emirati minister sat before him, he said, he saw \u201cthe reason my house was destroyed.\u201d
\n\u201cI lost everything,\u201d he said. \u201cI had to get up and say what was in my heart.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The United Arab Emirates is expanding a covert campaign to back a winner in Sudan\u2019s civil war. Waving the banner of the Red Crescent, it is also smuggling weapons and deploying drones By Declan Walsh and Christoph Koettl Declan Walsh reported from Sudan, Chad and Switzerland. Christoph Koettl analyzed satellite images, flight records and other …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33182,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33180"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33180\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33183,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33180\/revisions\/33183"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}