Are Iranian drones helping the army gain ground in Sudan’s civil war?

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War-torn Sudan's army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan greets military personnel as he visits casualties receiving treatment at a hospital in the southeastern Gedaref state, on the first day of Eid al-Fitr that marks the end of the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan on April 10, 2024. (AFP)
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Iranian drone Shahed-129 is displayed at a rally in Tehran, Iran. (AP file photo)
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Updated 11 April 2024
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Are Iranian drones helping the army gain ground in Sudan’s civil war?

  • Tehran’s backing for Sudan’s army is aimed at strengthening ties with the strategically located country, the Iranian and regional sources said

KHARTOUM: A year into Sudan’s civil war, Iranian-made armed drones have helped the army turn the tide of the conflict, halting the progress of the rival paramilitary Rapid Support Force and regaining territory around the capital, a senior army source told Reuters.
Six Iranian sources, regional officials and diplomats — who, like the army source, asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the information — also told Reuters the military had acquired Iranian-made unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) over the past few months.
The Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) used some older UAVs in the first months of the war alongside artillery batteries and fighter jets, but had little success in rooting out RSF fighters embedded in heavily populated neighborhoods in Khartoum and other cities, more than a dozen Khartoum residents said.
In January, nine months after fighting erupted, much more effective drones began operating from the army’s Wadi Sayidna base to the north of Khartoum, according to five eyewitnesses living in the area.
The residents said the drones appeared to monitor RSF movements, target their positions, and pinpoint artillery strikes in Omdurman, one of three cities on the banks of the Nile that comprise the capital Khartoum.
“In recent weeks, the army has begun to use precise drones in military operations, which forced the RSF to flee from many areas and allowed the army to deploy forces on the ground,” said Mohamed Othman, a 59-year-old resident of Omdurman’s Al-Thawra district.
The extent and manner of the army’s deployment of Iranian UAVs in Omdurman and other areas has not been previously reported. Bloomberg and Sudanese media have reported the presence of Iranian drones in the country.
The senior Sudanese army source denied that the Iranian-made drones came directly from Iran, and declined to say how they were procured or how many the army had received. Sudan’s army had also developed Iranian drones previously produced under joint military programs before the two countries cut ties in 2016, he added, without giving details. Reuters was unable to determine details about the drones independently.
The source that while diplomatic cooperation between Sudan and Iran had been restored last year, official military cooperation was still pending.
Asked about Iranian drones, Sudan’s acting foreign minister Ali Sadeq, who visited Iran last year and is aligned with the army, told Reuters: “Sudan did not obtain any weapons from Iran.”
The army’s media department and Iran’s foreign ministry did not respond to requests for comment.
The RSF acknowledged it had suffered setbacks in Omdurman. Its media office said the army had received Iranian drones and other weapons, citing intelligence it had gathered. It did not respond to requests to provide evidence.
Tehran’s backing for Sudan’s army is aimed at strengthening ties with the strategically located country, the Iranian and regional sources said. Sudan lies on the coast of the Red Sea, a key site of competition between global powers, including Iran, as war rages in the Middle East. From the other side of the Red Sea, Yemen’s Houthis, armed in part by Iran, have launched attacks in support of Hamas in Gaza.
“What does Iran get in return? They now have a staging post on the Red Sea and on the African side,” said a Western diplomat, who asked not to be named.
Recent territorial advances are the most significant for the army since the fighting began in Sudan’s capital last April. The war, between army head General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and RSF head General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, has pushed millions into extreme hunger, created the world’s largest displacement crisis, and triggered waves of ethnically driven killings and sexual violence in the Darfur region of western Sudan.
UN experts have said the RSF war effort has been aided by backing via neighboring African states including Chad, Libya and South Sudan, and that allegations of material support from the United Arab Emirates to the RSF were credible.
The army’s success in Omdurman allowed it from February to pursue similar attacks using drones, artillery and troops in Bahri, north of Khartoum, to try to take control of the key Al Jaili oil refinery, two witnesses there said.
The army has said that its recent gains have also been helped by recruitment — taking place over more than six months and accelerating since December — of thousands of volunteers in the areas it controls.

FLIGHTS FROM IRAN
Cooperation between Sudan and Iran was strong under former President Omar Al-Bashir, until he turned to Iran’s Gulf rivals for economic support late in his three-decade rule, cutting relations with Tehran.
Amin Mazajoub, a former Sudanese general, said Sudan had previously manufactured weapons with the help of Iran, and had repurposed drones already in its possession to make them more effective during the war. Mazajoub did not specifically comment on the source of the drones recently used in combat.
A regional source close to Iran’s clerical rulers said Iranian MoHajjer and Ababil drones had been transported to Sudan several times since late last year by Iran’s Qeshm Fars Air. MoHajjer and Ababil drones are made by companies operating under Iran’s Ministry of Defense, which did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
Flight tracking records collated by Wim Zwijnenburg of Dutch peace organization Pax and provided to Reuters show that in December 2023 and January 2024, a Boeing 747-200 cargo plane operated by Qeshm Fars Air made six journeys from Iran to Port Sudan, an important base for the army since the RSF took over strategic sites in Khartoum in the first days of the war.
The frequency of these flights has not been previously reported. Emails and phone calls to Qeshm Fars Air, which is under US sanctions, went unanswered. Reuters was unable to establish whether the details listed for the airline were up to date.
A photo provided by satellite imaging company Planet Labs for which Reuters verified the location and date, shows a Boeing 747 with the wingspan consistent with a 747-200 at Port Sudan airport on Dec. 7, the date of the first of the tracked flights, Zwijnenburg said.
A MoHajjer-6 appeared in January on the runway at the Wadi Sayidna base in another satellite photograph dated Jan. 9, Zwijnenburg said.
The RSF said the army was receiving twice-weekly cargo plane deliveries of Iranian drones and other arms from Iran. It told Reuters that RSF intelligence showed deliveries of Iranian MoHajjer-4, MoHajjer-6 and Ababil drones to Port Sudan. It said it had shot down several of the drones.
The RSF did not provide evidence for the drone deliveries.
Sourcing weapons from Iran could complicate relations for the Sudanese military with the United States, which is leading a push for negotiations between the warring parties.
US Special Envoy for Sudan Tom Perriello said in an interview on Wednesday that fear of greater influence for Iran or extremist elements in Sudan was one reason the US believed there was momentum for a peace deal.
A US State Department spokesperson said the US had seen the reports on Iranian support for the army and was monitoring the situation.
“The United States opposes external involvement to support the Sudan conflict – it will only exacerbate and prolong the conflict and risks further spreading regional instability,” the spokesperson said.
 

 


Israeli ‘aggression’ targets Syria’s Homs countryside, state news agency says

Updated 54 min 11 sec ago
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Israeli ‘aggression’ targets Syria’s Homs countryside, state news agency says

  • Blasts had been heard in the vicinity of Homs city and that the cause was under investigation

HOMS: Initial reports indicate that an Israeli “aggression” targeted two villages in northern and western areas of Syria’s Homs province, the Syrian state news agency said on Tuesday.
Earlier, Syrian state television said blasts had been heard in the vicinity of Homs city and that the cause was under investigation.
Israel has been carrying out strikes against Iran-linked targets in Syria for years but has ramped up such raids since the Oct. 7, 2023, assault on southern Israel by Hamas-led militants.


Saudi Arabia sends aircraft loaded with food, medical supplies to Lebanon

Updated 26 November 2024
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Saudi Arabia sends aircraft loaded with food, medical supplies to Lebanon

  • Saudi aid agency KSrelief has transported hundreds of tonnes of aid to region since October

RIYADH: Saudi Arabia sent its 24th relief plane to Lebanon on Tuesday with humanitarian supplies including food and medical aid.

The conflict between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah has intensified of late, forcing thousands of Lebanese to flee their villages and neighborhoods while under fire in southern Lebanon and the country’s capital, Beirut.

Arab nations like Saudi Arabia and the UAE have sent aid supplies to Lebanon to help those displaced.

The aid plane flying the latest mission took off from King Khalid International Airport near Riyadh and headed to Rafic Hariri International Airport in Beirut, the Saudi Press Agency reported.

A statement from the Saudi aid agency KSrelief said the aid deliveries showed that the Kingdom was “standing with needy and affected countries … in the face of crises and difficulties.”

KSrelief launched an initiative in October to transport hundreds of tonnes of medical supplies and food aid to Lebanon.


Childhood cancer patients in Lebanon must battle disease while under fire

Doctor Dolly Noun, a pediatric hematologist and oncologist, checks Carol Zeghayer, 9, a girl who suffers from leukaemia ahead of
Updated 26 November 2024
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Childhood cancer patients in Lebanon must battle disease while under fire

  • More than war, parents fear that their children will miss life saving chemotherapy treatment
  • Among the tens of thousands fleeing their homes among them are families with children battling cancer

BEIRUT: Carol Zeghayer gripped her IV as she hurried down the brightly lit hallway of Beirut’s children’s cancer center. The 9-year-old’s face brightened when she spotted her playmates from the oncology ward.
Diagnosed with cancer just months before the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel erupted in October 2023, Carol relies on weekly trips to the center in the Lebanese capital for treatment.
But what used to be a 90-minute drive, now takes up to three hours on a mountainous road to skirt the heavy bombardment in south Lebanon, but still not without danger from Israeli airstrikes. The family is just one among many across Lebanon now grappling with the hardships of both illness and war.
“She’s just a child. When they strike, she asks me, ‘Mama, was that far?’” said her mother, Sindus Hamra.
The family lives in Hasbaya, a province in southeastern Lebanon where the rumble of Israeli airstrikes has become part of daily life. Just 15 minutes away from their home, in the front-line town of Khiam, Israeli troops and Hezbollah fighters clash amidst relentless bombardments.
On the morning of a recent trip to Beirut for her treatment, the family heard a rocket roar and its deafening impact as they left their home. Israeli airstrikes have also hit vehicles along the Damascus-Beirut highway, which Carol and her mother have to cross.
The bombardment hasn’t let up even as hopes grew in recent days that a ceasefire might soon be agreed.
More than war, Hamra fears that Carol will miss chemotherapy.
“Her situation is very tricky — her cancer can spread to her head,” Hamra said, her eyes filling with tears. Her daughter, diagnosed first with cancer of the lymph nodes and later leukemia, has completed a third of her treatment, with many months still ahead.
While Carol’s family remains in their home, many in Lebanon have been displaced by an intensified Israeli bombardment that began in late September. Tens of thousands fled their homes in southern and eastern Lebanon, as well as Beirut’s southern suburbs — among them were families with children battling cancer.
The Children’s Cancer Center of Lebanon quickly identified each patient’s location to ensure treatments remained uninterrupted, sometimes facilitating them at hospitals closer to the families’ new locations, said Zeina El Chami, the center’s fundraising and events executive.
During the first days of the escalation, the center admitted some patients for emergency care and kept them there as it was unsafe to send them home, said Dolly Noun, a pediatric hematologist and oncologist.
“They had no place to go,” she added. “We’ve had patients getting admitted for panic attacks. It has not been easy.”
The war has not only deepened the struggles of young patients.
“Many physicians have had to relocate,” Noun said. “I know physicians, who work here, who haven’t seen their parents in like six weeks because the roads are very dangerous.”
Since 2019, Lebanon has been battered by cascading crises — economic collapse, the devastating Beirut port explosion in 2020, and now a relentless war — leaving institutions like the cancer center struggling to secure the funds needed to save lives.
“Cancer waits for no one,” Chami said. The crises have affected the center’s ability to hold fundraising events in recent years, leaving it in urgent need of donations, she added.
The facility is currently treating more than 400 patients aged from few days to 18 years old, Chami said. It treats around 60 percent of children with cancer in Lebanon.
For Carol, the war is sometimes a topic of conversation with her friends at the cancer center. Her mother hears her recount hearing the booms and how the house shook.
For others, the moments with their friends in the center’s playroom provide a brief escape from the grim reality outside.
Eight-year-old Mohammad Mousawi darts around the playroom, giggling as he hides objects and books for his playmate to find. Too absorbed by the game, he barely answers questions, before the nurse calls him for his weekly chemotherapy treatment.
His family lived in Ghobeiry, a neighborhood in Beirut’s southern suburbs. Their house was marked for destruction in an Israeli evacuation warning weeks ago, his mother said.
“But till now, they haven’t struck it,” said his mother, Suzan Mousawi. “They have hit (buildings) around it — two behind it and two in front of it.”
The family has relocated three times. They first moved to the mountains, but the bitter cold weakened Mohammad’s already fragile immune system.
Now they’ve settled in Ain el-Rummaneh, not far from their home in the southern Beirut suburbs known as Dahiyeh, which has come under significant bombardment. As the Israeli military widened the radius of its bombardment, some buildings hit were less than 500 meters (yards) from their current home.
The Mousawis have lived their entire lives in Dahiyeh, Suzan Mousawi said, until the war uprooted them. Her parents’ home was bombed. “All our memories are gone,” she said.
Mohammad has 15 weeks of treatment left, and his family is praying it will be successful. But the war has stolen some of their dreams.
“When Mohammad fell ill, we bought a house,” she said. “It wasn’t big, but it was something. I bought him an electric scooter and set up a pool, telling myself we’d take him there once he finishes treatment.”
She fears the house, bought with every penny she had saved, could be lost at any moment.
For some families, this kind of conflict is not new. Asinat Al Lahham, a 9-year-old patient of the cancer center, is a refugee whose family fled Syria.
“We escaped one war to another,” Asinat’s mother, Fatima, added.
As her father, Aouni, drove home from her chemotherapy treatment weeks ago, an airstrike happened. He cranked up the music in the car, trying to drown out the deafening sound of the attack.
Asinat sat in the back seat, clutching her favorite toy. “I wanted to distract her, to make her hear less of it,” he said.
In the medical ward on a recent day, Asinat sat in a chair hooked to an IV drip, negotiating with her doctor. “Just two or three small pinches,” she pleaded, asking for flavoring for her instant noodles that she is not supposed to have.
“I don’t feel safe … nowhere is safe … not Lebanon, not Syria, not Palestine,” Asinat said. “The sonic booms are scary, but the noodles make it better,” she added with a mischievous grin.
The family has no choice but to stay in Lebanon. Returning to Syria, where their home is gone, would mean giving up Asinat’s treatment.
“We can’t leave here,” her mother said. “This war, her illness … it’s like there’s no escape.”


Why has Israel increased its attacks on Syria?

Updated 26 November 2024
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Why has Israel increased its attacks on Syria?

  • The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor has recorded at least 86 Israeli attacks, with 199 Iran-backed fighters, Syrian soldiers and 39 civilians killed
  • Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said Israel has mainly hit border crossings, Damascus apartments, and the positions of Iran-backed groups

BEIRUT: Last week Israel launched its deadliest strikes on Iran-backed groups in Syria, killing more than 100 fighters in the latest escalation since two months of full-blown Israel-Hezbollah war spilled over.
What are the reasons for this escalation, and what exactly is Israel targeting in Lebanon’s neighbor Syria?
Israel intensified its strikes against Syria from September 26, days after launching an intense bombing campaign mainly targeting Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon.
Since then, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor has recorded at least 86 Israeli attacks, with 199 Iran-backed fighters, Syrian soldiers and 39 civilians killed.
On November 20, Israeli strikes on the city of Palmyra killed 106 Tehran-backed fighters, with one raid targeting a meeting of commanders.
It was the deadliest Israeli attack on Iran-backed groups since Syria’s war erupted in 2011, said the Britain-based Observatory which has a network of sources inside the country.
The casualties included 73 pro-Iran Syrian fighters, 11 of whom worked for Hezbollah which also lost four Lebanese members. The remaining 29 casualties were mostly from Iraq’s Al-Nujaba group.
On Monday, Israel struck again, this time at a crossing on the Syria-Lebanon border, the latest in a wave of attacks targeting such routes since September.
Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said Israel has mainly hit border crossings, Damascus apartments, and the positions of Iran-backed groups, including Hezbollah weapons and ammunition depots.
“Syria today has become a de facto part of Israel’s battlefield,” he said.
On November 19, Syrian Foreign Minister Bassam Sabbagh visited ally Tehran and condemned “more than 130” Israeli attacks on his country since the Gaza war started in October 2023.
These included an April 1 attack on an Iranian diplomatic building in Damascus that killed seven Islamic Republic Guard Corps members including two generals, triggering Iran’s first ever attack on Israel.
Since 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes in Syria, mainly targeting the army and Iran-backed groups.
Israel rarely comments on such strikes, but has repeatedly said it will not allow Iran to expand its presence there.
Israel’s military said Monday’s strikes targeted “smuggling routes to transfer weapons to” Hezbollah, and follow other operations against “Syrian regime smuggling routes” in recent weeks.
For Century Foundation analyst Sam Heller, “the deterrent balance that had existed between Hezbollah and Israel has broken down” since the Lebanon war.
“Israel is now bombing Lebanon at will, and additionally hitting what are purportedly Hezbollah and Iran-linked targets in Syria without fear of real reprisal” by the group.
“This all seems like an attempt by Israel to sustainably weaken Hezbollah,” as it pounds its “logistical lines via Syria and pushes for a resolution to the war that will prevent Hezbollah from resupplying and rebuilding,” Heller added.
Renad Mansour of Chatham House said Israel’s Syria strikes “targeted the financial and military supply chains that fuel the axis of resistance” — Iran-backed armed groups that include Hezbollah and Palestinian, Yemeni and Iraqi militants.
On Sunday, UN special envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen said it was “extremely critical” to end the Lebanon and Gaza fighting to avoid dragging Syria into a regional war.
Escalating Israeli attacks have added to the country’s woes after 13 years of conflict and successive economic crises compounded by Western sanctions.
Damascus has not responded to Israel’s attacks and has tried to distance itself from the Gaza and Lebanon wars.
“Any counterattack against Israel would invite massive retaliation against Syria’s leadership or essential infrastructure,” Heller said.
A source close to Hezbollah said “Syria’s role is not to attack Israel, but rather to serve... as a supply line from Iran and Iraq to Hezbollah.”
Tehran and Baghdad fear that Israeli strikes, which have already hit Yemen’s Houthi militants, could hit their territory even if a ceasefire is agreed, the source said, requesting anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.
Last week, Israel called on the UN Security Council to pressure Iraq into halting attacks launched by Iran-backed groups from its soil.
Tehran-backed Iraqi factions have claimed near-daily drone attacks on Israel in solidarity with allies Hamas and Hezbollah. Most of the attacks were intercepted.
The Baghdad government, which is dominated by pro-Iran parties, has accused Israel of trying to legitimize attacking Iraq, saying it was already taking measures to prevent attacks on Israel launched from its territory.
For more than a year, “Iraq has managed to stay relatively insulated from this wider regional war,” Mansour told AFP, adding that Iran and the United States also pushed for this.
But “in this time of transition between US President (Joe) Biden and (Donald) Trump, the Iraqi government is concerned that (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu has even more of a free hand to go after all the axis of resistance,” he said.


UK campaigners file emergency injunction over F-35 exports to Israel

Updated 26 November 2024
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UK campaigners file emergency injunction over F-35 exports to Israel

  • Move follows ICC issuing of warrants for Netanyahu, Gallant
  • ‘UK is now arming suspected war criminals,’ says Global Legal Action Network lawyer

LONDON: Campaigners in the UK seeking to block the sale of F-35 parts to Israel are applying for an emergency high court injunction after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The government has until Friday to file a defense against the campaigners from Global Legal Action Network and Al-Haq.

It is “unconscionable” that British manufacturers of F-35 parts continue to sell weapons systems that are used to kill Palestinians in Gaza, campaigners said.

On Nov. 18 at a high court hearing, the government admitted that potential damage to the UK-US relationship played a role in the continuation of exports.

In earlier hearings, ministers, some of whom have admitted that Israel is in breach of international law, were asked about the rationale for continuing exports.

The court was set to hear the case again in January next year.

Government ministers have said that F-35 parts enter a general export pool and that it is impossible to determine the destination of each part.

The Labour government reversed a decision by the former Conservative government to allow some arms export licenses to Israel to remain in place, finding a risk that the exports could be used to breach international humanitarian law.

GLAN lawyer Charlotte Andrews-Briscoe said: “It is unconscionable that the UK continues to allow British-made components for F-35s to be used in Israel’s extermination campaign against Palestinians.

“As of Thursday, the UK is now arming suspected war criminals who have been indicted by the world’s preeminent criminal court.

“For 13 months, GLAN and Al-Haq have argued that weapons sales to Israel are unlawful. When will it be enough? Does the UK government have any red lines?”

The emergency injunction follows the ICC’s issuing of arrest warrants for Netanyahu; former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant; and Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif.

The Israeli leader condemned the court’s decision as “antisemitic.”

GLAN and Al-Haq’s injunction is a sign of the impact caused by the ICC warrants.

Al-Haq spokesperson Zainah El-Haroun said: “The latest arrest warrants issued against Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Gallant for the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity add to the insurmountable evidence that British weapons, particularly F-35 components, are being used to commit international crimes, including genocide.”