A parade of Sudanese armed forces, Gedaref, eastern Sudan, August 14, 2025. - / AFP
Sudan's two warring factions, in conflict since April 2023, carried out drone attacks on October 21, 22 and 23 on Khartoum airport and surrounding areas, once again confirming the growing sophistication of the military equipment available to them, as well as their capacity to strike far from their bases.
Like those carried out a week earlier on the capital, which was retaken in the spring by the Sudanese army, these strikes were perpetrated by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the powerful paramilitary group led by General Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo (better known as "Hemedti"), and were most likely launched from Nyala.
The capital of South Darfur, located about 1,000 kilometers Southwest of Khartoum, has an airfield that has become the primary launchpad for long-range drones supplied by the United Arab Emirates. Despite repeated denials and in defiance of the United Nations arms embargo on the region that has been in place since 2004, Abu Dhabi has, according to reports and eyewitness accounts, become the main backer of the RSF in its war against the Sudanese armed forces, led by General Abdel Fattah Abdelrahman al-Burhan.
