{"id":62221,"date":"2026-11-01T21:44:25","date_gmt":"2026-11-01T18:44:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/?p=62221"},"modified":"2026-11-02T22:45:32","modified_gmt":"2026-11-02T19:45:32","slug":"drones-what-is-their-story-and-who-is-behind-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/2026\/11\/01\/drones-what-is-their-story-and-who-is-behind-them\/","title":{"rendered":"Drones\u2026 What Is Their Story, and Who Is Behind Them?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Drone attacks increased markedly during October, with the latest incident occurring on Saturday, when Armed Forces monitoring units detected a drone flying over the area between the cities of Dilling and Kadugli. It was spotted specifically in the Dashoul area, located along the road connecting the two cities, north of Kadugli, the capital of South Kordofan State.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Large numbers of residents held their breath, fearing that the drone might target civilian sites or vital facilities, as happened on Wednesday afternoon, when an attack caused extensive damage to a fuel station belonging to Nile Petroleum Company and an electricity substation northwest of the city’s main market. A third projectile struck the Talodi bus station, crowded with civilians and located east of the main market. The third-degree residential district, southeast of the market, was also hit by the drone’s fourth projectile. Medical monitoring platforms reported a number of injuries of varying severity among more than 18 civilians struck by the four projectiles.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The conditions witnessed in Kadugli and Dilling and their surrounding areas have been repeated in various parts of the country, including the city of Shendi in River Nile State. On Friday afternoon, the Local Security Committee, chaired by the locality’s executive director, announced that the city’s electricity station had been attacked by a drone. The strike damaged the station’s main transformers, which supply electricity to the entire city and some surrounding areas and villages, resulting in a complete blackout. Serious efforts are now underway to restore power.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The same incident occurred at the Al-Markhiyat transformer substation northwest of Omdurman, which was directly targeted by drones, causing extensive damage inside the facility and a complete power outage across large areas of the federal capital. The Um Dabaker power station in White Nile State was also subjected to a similar drone attack, sustaining substantial damage. According to information provided by a source closely connected to the electricity sector, repairing the damage could take several months.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Similar incidents have continued since the beginning of this year in the cities of Al-Faw, Al-Hawata, Singa, Mashkour, Kadugli, El Obeid, Al-Rahad Abu Dakana, and Umm Rawaba. The attacks have affected the states of Gedaref, Sennar, White Nile, Al Jazirah, South Kordofan, and North Kordofan.<\/strong><\/p>\n

There is no need to elaborate on the consequences of these systematic attacks on vital facilities, which have serious humanitarian and social implications. The shutdown of electricity supply stations, fuel depots, and fuel distribution facilities brings public services to a complete standstill, affecting electricity and water supplies, hospitals, and schools.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Power cuts and the shutdown of generators at hospitals and healthcare facilities disrupt their operations and put patients’ lives at risk, particularly during surgical procedures. When electricity stations and fuel facilities are struck by drones, hospitals and healthcare institutions face multiple challenges. Medicines are also at risk of spoiling, particularly those that must be stored at specific low temperatures, as are medical devices that require refrigerated storage or controlled low-temperature conditions.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Another consequence of drone attacks on vital facilities is the collapse of telecommunications networks. Transmission and relay stations have been damaged, disrupting the services provided by telecommunications companies. This, in turn, hampers mobile banking and financial transfers, depriving many families of the means to obtain their daily necessities, including food, water, and medicine, as well as to conduct commercial and service transactions and travel from one place to another.<\/strong><\/p>\n

An important question, followed by another related question, must be raised and answered: What lies behind these drones, and who is behind them?<\/strong><\/p>\n

To answer this, it is necessary to state that the ongoing war in the country since April 15, 2023, is an existential war targeting Sudan’s geography, history, and vast resources, both above and beneath the ground, in addition to its unique strategic location and the diversity of its population groups.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The war began with a plan by the Rapid Support Forces, which rebelled against the state of which they had been a part, to seize power. When that plan failed, the conflict turned into urban warfare aimed at driving residents out of their cities, emptying homes, shops, factories, workshops, educational and cultural institutions, looting their contents, and systematically destroying their infrastructure and historic landmarks.<\/strong><\/p>\n

After all the plans and schemes of the rebel militia and its supporters failed, they turned to a strategy of targeting vital facilities, including fuel depots, distribution stations, and electricity generation, transmission, and distribution facilities, using highly sophisticated drones that operate without pilots.<\/strong><\/p>\n

This approach serves several objectives. In addition to targeting infrastructure and destroying vital facilities, drone warfare is relatively inexpensive compared with the costs of other military operations, including troop movements, logistics, supplies, deployment, armament, equipping, and training.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Another fundamental objective is to halt the voluntary return of citizens to their homes and workplaces in the states and cities recaptured by the Armed Forces, the Joint Forces, and their supporting groups. This is being pursued by increasing psychological pressure on residents and undermining their morale.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Although drones pose an imminent threat to all peaceful civilians, an even more important reason for deploying them so intensively and simultaneously in multiple cities is to divert local and international public attention from the recent divisions and defections within the militia, as well as the reluctance of many of its social support bases to mobilize their sons and send them to the battlefronts. This reluctance follows the bitter experiences endured by other recruits within the militia, which has discriminated between them and members of the Mahariya ethnic group, the group most closely associated with the Dagalo family. Members of the latter have enjoyed substantial and unprecedented privileges, while others have suffered hunger, disease, injuries, and the horrors of war.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The United Arab Emirates, the militia’s largest supporter, designed the drone warfare strategy to expand the areas plunged into darkness and terrorize peaceful civilians and vital facilities, thereby increasing economic pressure on the population in the hope that they would withdraw their support for the government and the army. But these efforts have not achieved that objective. At the same time, the strategy is intended to divert attention from the defeats suffered by the militia on the battlefield.<\/strong><\/p>\n

As for the second question arising from the main one \u2014 who is behind the drones? \u2014 the preceding account makes clear that the United Arab Emirates, as the militia’s supporter, is behind supplying it with drones to achieve the objectives outlined above.<\/strong><\/p>\n

However, the question of who is behind the drones can also be answered from another angle: hostile neighboring countries are involved in bringing drones into Sudan. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, through its Undersecretary, Ambassador Muawiya Osman Khalid, has confirmed Ethiopia’s involvement in launching drones from within its territory. He stated that air defense surveillance systems had confirmed this.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Furthermore, confirmed information has circulated indicating that the transfer of drones into Sudan across its borders is carried out in coordination with certain neighboring countries that the UAE has drawn to its side. Complete drones are smuggled across the land borders of hostile neighboring states, or flown into airports and airstrips in areas controlled by the Rapid Support Forces. They are transported through countries allied with the militia, including Ethiopia, Chad, and Khalifa Haftar’s Libya.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The militia also purchases drones directly from manufacturing countries, including China and the United States, through companies affiliated with the United Arab Emirates.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It is important to point out that those collaborating with the militia, who constitute its sleeper cells, are among the most significant facilitators of drone operations and the growing number of attacks. This makes it necessary to tighten surveillance of them, expose their activities, and disrupt their plans.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Their tasks begin at the borders, where they facilitate the entry and smuggling of drones into the country. Once the drones enter Sudan, they help reassemble them through technicians collaborating with the militia, test their operation, and connect them to the relevant technical systems.<\/strong><\/p>\n

There is another category of militia collaborators who are even more dangerous. The technical platforms used to launch drones rely on them for information. They provide comprehensive intelligence, including geographical coordinates obtained through GPS technology, identifying military locations and vital facilities such as electricity generation, transmission, and distribution stations; fuel depots and distribution stations; and fuel transport routes from ports and storage depots to distribution facilities.<\/strong><\/p>\n

They also provide precise information about the movements of military, political, and executive leaders, as well as their residential locations. All this information is then sent to the entities operating the drones so that targets can be identified accurately.<\/strong><\/p>\n

One of the most dangerous operations carried out by these collaborators is visual target confirmation: observing locations with the naked eye and photographing them to verify that the target is present before a drone is launched and the strike is carried out. This is intended to ensure that a site from which people have already been evacuated is not struck.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The collaborators also undertake other dangerous activities, including planting electronic chips and sensors. In such operations, a collaborator plants electronic tracking devices in the premises or vehicles of targeted individuals to guide drones towards them.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In conclusion, the growing frequency of drone operations clearly indicates that the question of what lies behind the use of drones in Sudan’s ongoing war points to a dangerous strategic shift in the conflict, one that must be confronted through every available means.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Source: A\u1e63d\u0101\u02be S\u016bd\u0101niyya (Sudanese Echoes).<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Drone attacks increased markedly during October, with the latest incident occurring on Saturday, when Armed Forces monitoring units detected a drone flying over the area between the cities of Dilling and Kadugli. It was spotted specifically in the Dashoul area, located along the road connecting the two cities, north of Kadugli, the capital of South …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48643,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62221","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\/62221","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=62221"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62221\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62222,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62221\/revisions\/62222"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}