Evidence shows drones used by Iran and UAE

Iran and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have been accused of violating a United Nations arms embargo by supplying drones to warring sides in the devastating 14-month conflict. destroy Sudan. We review the evidence to support the claim.

On the morning of March 12, 2024, Sudanese government soldiers were celebrating an unprecedented military offensive. They eventually recaptured the headquarters of the state television station in the capital Khartoum.

Like most of the city, the building had fallen to the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) at the start of the civil war 11 months earlier.

What is notable about this military victory by the army is that videos show that the attack was carried out with the help of Iranian-made drones.

According to Suliman Baldo, director of the Sudan Policy and Transparency Observatory, in the early stages of the war, the army relied on the air force.

“The armed forces find all their priority forces are surrounded and they have no fighting force on the ground,” he said.

The RSF maintains ground control over most of Khartoum and Darfur in western Sudan, while the army maintains a presence in the skies.

By early January 2024, a video appeared on Twitter of an army drone shot down by RSF.

According to Wim Zwijnenburg, a drone expert and head of the Humanitarian Disarmament Project at the Dutch peace organization PAX, the debris, engine and tail resembled a drone. Iranian-made drone called Mohajer-6.

The Mohajer-6 is 6.5 meters long, can fly up to 2,000 km (1,240 miles) and carry out airstrikes with guided free-fall bullets.

Mr. Zwijnenburg identified another version of the drone in satellite images of the army’s Wadi Seidna military base, north of Khartoum, taken three days later.

“These drones are very effective because they can accurately identify targets without much training,” he said.

Three weeks after the Mohajer-6 was shot down, a video emerged of another drone shot down by the RSF.

Mr. Zwijnenburg compared this to the Zajil-3 – a domestically produced version of Iran’s Ababil-3 drone.

Zajil-3 drones have been used in Sudan for many years. But January was the first time they were recruited into this fight, according to BBC and PAX observations.

In March, Mr. Zwijnenburg identified another version of the Zajil-3 captured in satellite images of Wadi Seidna.

“[It is] a sign of Iran’s active support for the Sudanese army,” he said, although Sudan’s governing council has denied buying weapons from Iran.

“If these drones are equipped with guided munitions, it means they were supplied by Iran because those munitions are not produced in Sudan,” Mr. Zwijnenburg added.

In early December, a Boeing 747 passenger plane of Iran’s Qeshm Fars Air took off from Bandar Abbas airport in Iran, heading towards the Red Sea before disappearing from radar.

Hours later, satellites captured images of a plane of the same type at Port Sudan airport in the east of the country, where Sudanese military officials are stationed.

A photo of that plane on the runway was later circulated on Twitter.

This flight was repeated five times until the end of January, the same month Iran’s use of drones was recorded.

Qeshm Fars Air faces US sanctions due to accusations of transporting weapons and warplanes throughout the Middle East, especially to Syria, one of Iran’s main allies.

Sudan had a long history of military cooperation with Iran before relations ended in 2016 due to the conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran, in which Sudan sided with Saudi Arabia.

“Many Sudanese weapons are domestically produced versions of Iranian models,” said Mr. Baldo from the Sudan Policy and Transparency Observatory.

Since the start of the current conflict, the Sudanese government has restored relations with Tehran.

According to Mr. Baldo, each side has its goals.

“Iran is looking for a foothold in the region,” he said. If they find geostrategic concessions, they will certainly provide more and more advanced drones.”

The BBC has contacted Sudan’s military, Iran’s Foreign Ministry and Qeshm Fars Air for comment on allegations that Iranian drones are being used in the conflict but has not yet responded.

But in an interview with the BBC, Malik Agar, vice president of Sudan’s Sovereign Council, said: “We have not received any weapons from any side. Weapons are available on the black market and the black market is now grey”.

Meanwhile, evidence emerged from the beginning of the war that the RSF used quadcopter drones made from commercial parts, capable of dropping 120mm mortar rounds.

Images and footage on social networks show that the military has shot down many of these drones.

Brian Castner, weapons expert at Amnesty International, criticized the UAE.

“The UAE has provided its allies with similar drones in other conflict zones such as Ethiopia and Yemen,” he said.

According to a United Nations report presented to the Security Council earlier this year, aviation surveillance experts observed a civil aviation bridge believed to be transporting weapons from the UAE to the RSF – a allegations which the UAE denies.

The route begins at Abu Dhabi airport, passes through Nairobi and Kampala airports, before ending at Amdjarass airport in Chad, a few kilometers from Sudan’s western border and Darfur, where the RSF has a stronghold.

The UN report also cited local sources and military groups as reporting that weapons vehicles unloaded from planes at Amdjarass airport several times a week before heading to Darfur and the rest of the country. Sudan.

“The UAE also has economic interests in Sudan and is seeking a foothold in the Red Sea,” Mr. Baldo said.

The UAE has repeatedly denied the flights were transporting weapons, saying they were instead transporting humanitarian aid. In a statement, a government official told the BBC that the UAE is committed to finding “a peaceful solution to the ongoing conflict”.

RSF has not responded to the BBC’s request for comment.

The drones that both sides in the civil war are believed to have imported violate a 2005 United Nations Security Council resolution banning the supply of weapons to the Sudanese government and its factions. armed forces in Darfur.

“The Security Council must take responsibility and consider the situation in Sudan, the approaching famine and the number of people killed and displaced, and immediately implement a global arms embargo,” Mr. Castner said. covering the whole of Sudan”.

Since drones appeared in the skies of Sudan, the situation on the ground has changed somewhat.

The Sudanese army has managed to break the siege imposed on its soldiers in several locations.

And the RSF has withdrawn from several neighborhoods west of the capital.

According to Mr. Baldo, this change happened thanks to Iranian drones.

According to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (Acled), after more than a year of war, at least 16,650 civilians have been killed.

The United Nations’ International Organization for Migration (IOM) estimates that 12 million people have been forced from their homes – more than in any other conflict today.

Abdullah Makkawi is the one who has now fled to Egypt. While still in southern Khartoum last July, he said he narrowly escaped death when drones he said belonged to the RSF attacked.

“I rushed into the house and took refuge in a room with a concrete roof… My mother, four siblings and I hid under the bed,” he said.

Mr. Makkawi said they heard the drone’s artillery shells falling into the wooden-roofed room next door.

“If we had been in the other room, we would all have been killed. We survived by a miracle,” he said.

In early 2024, the conflict spread to new areas outside the capital. Civilian deaths from drone strikes have been reported for the first time in northern, eastern and central Sudan.

Before fleeing to Egypt, Mr. Makkawi left his family in Port Sudan because he considered it a safe place. But now he fears drones could reach them there, too.

“The Sudanese people are tired of war. All we want is for the war to end. If foreign countries stop providing weapons to both sides, everything will be over.”