Paramilitary drone war raises stakes in Sudan as Iran eyes Red Sea military foothold

By Global Watch and AFP | 2025-06-05

Paramilitary drone strikes targeting Sudan's wartime capital are intended to shatter the regular army's sense of security and open a dangerous new chapter in the war, analysts say.

Since April 2023, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) group has been at war with the army, which has recently recaptured some territory and dislodged the paramilitaries from the capital, Khartoum.

The army appeared to have the upper hand before May 11, when drones began blasting key infrastructure in Port Sudan, seat of the army-backed government on the Red Sea coast.

With daily strikes on the city since then, the RSF has sought to demonstrate its strength, discredit the army, disrupt army supply lines and project an air of legitimacy, observers say.

"This is intended to undermine the army's ability to provide safety and security in areas it controls," allowing the RSF to expand the war "without physically being there," according to Sudanese analyst Kholood Khair.

For two years, the paramilitaries relied mainly on lightning ground offensives, overwhelming army defenses in brutal campaigns of conquest.

But after losing nearly all of Khartoum in March, the RSF has increasingly turned to long-range air power.

Using weapons the army says came from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the RSF has hit strategic sites hundreds of kilometers away from its holdout positions on the capital's outskirts.

The RSF's pivot is a matter of both "strategic adaptation" and "if not desperation, then necessity," said Michael Jones, research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London.

Strategic setback

"The loss of Khartoum was both a strategic and symbolic setback," he told AFP.

In response, the RSF needed to broadcast a "message that the war isn't over," according to Sudanese analyst Hamid Khalafallah.

The conflict between Sudan's de facto leader, army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and his former deputy, RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, has split Africa's third largest country in two.

The army holds the center, north and east, while the RSF controls almost all of the vast western region of Darfur and, with its allies, parts of the south.

"It's unlikely that the RSF can retake Khartoum or reach Port Sudan by land, but drones enable them to create a sense of fear and destabilize cities" formerly considered safe, Khalafallah told AFP.

With drones and loitering munitions, it can "reach areas it hasn't previously infiltrated successfully," Jones said.

According to a retired Sudanese general, the RSF has been known to use two types of drones -- makeshift lightweight models with 120mm mortar rounds that explode on impact, and long-range drones capable of delivering guided missiles, including the Chinese-manufactured CH95.

"Chinese GB50A guided bombs and 155mm AH-4 howitzers" used by the RSF in Khartoum and Darfur came from the UAE, Amnesty International said in a report published May 15.

Sparing fighters

The Sudanese government severed diplomatic ties with the Gulf state on May 13, accusing it of supplying the advanced weapon systems the RSF has used to attack Port Sudan.

Abu Dhabi has repeatedly denied arming the RSF, despite reports from United Nations experts, US politicians and international organizations.

At the same time, Iran is exploiting the chaos of Sudan's civil war.

Tehran seeks to gain a permanent foothold on the Red Sea by aligning itself with the Sudanese army and providing direct support, according to analyst Tareq Alotaiba, writing in a March 3 blog for the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington.

The Red Sea is vital to the global economy, he said, as it carries 15% of global maritime trade and 12% of seaborne oil through the Suez Canal, which connects the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean.

Sudan's civil war has left the country fractured and Iran is seizing the opportunity to align itself with the government of al-Burhan, Alotaiba said.

While Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has publicly voiced support for Sudan's embattled government and promised investment, a military arrangement could be Tehran's real endgame.

Unlike Djibouti, Eritrea and Somalia -- where multiple nations have naval bases -- Sudan has only a small Russian presence, making it an ideal location for Iran to extend its influence, Alotaiba noted.

A base there would put Iranian forces within striking distance of the key Saudi seaport of Jeddah.

A Red Sea presence is key to Iran's emerging geopolitical strategy in the Middle East, with the Iran-backed Houthis' attacks on ships demonstrating the advantages of political power and of the backing of sponsor states.