Sudan War · 2023 – Present
The Sudan Civil War that erupted in April 2023 is a conflict between two forces that were themselves created by the same political system: the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF), the state military, and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary established from the Janjaweed militias responsible for the Darfur genocide. Both forces use weapons from multiple sources — Soviet-era SAF equipment, UAE-supplied RSF light vehicles, Libyan arms flows, and captured weapons — in a conflict characterized by urban fighting in population centers, aerial bombardment of cities, and systematic looting and atrocity. The RSF's advantage in light mobility — using Toyota Land Cruisers mounted with heavy machine guns, mortars, and anti-aircraft guns in the 'technical' style perfected by Libyan and Chadian conflicts — compensated for its lack of heavy armor and air power.
The RSF's primary combat vehicles are 'technicals' — commercially purchased Toyota Land Cruisers and Hiluxes with heavy machine guns, DShK 12.7mm heavy machine guns, 14.5mm ZPU anti-aircraft guns, 23mm ZU-23-2 autocannons, or recoilless rifles mounted in the truck bed. The RSF developed this vehicle concept through its origins in the Janjaweed militias of the 2003–2020 Darfur conflict, which in turn adapted it from Chadian and Libyan insurgent groups. Technicals combine tactical mobility with firepower adequate against unarmored infantry and light vehicles. In Khartoum and Omdurman, RSF technicals seized positions in neighborhoods, using the vehicles as mobile weapons platforms that could relocate before SAF artillery or air strikes could respond.
Significance
The RSF's success against Sudan's conventional military — which possesses tanks, artillery, and aircraft — mirrors the pattern seen in Libya (2011) and Chad: motivated, mobile light forces that exploit their speed advantage to avoid conventional weapon systems. SAF tanks are slow, high-maintenance, require fuel and logistics the collapsing state can barely provide, and are ineffective in dense urban terrain. RSF technicals, by contrast, operate from civilian supply chains, can park in homes, and are individually expendable. The war demonstrated that mobile light paramilitary forces can militarily dominate even when severely outclassed in heavy weapons.
The Sudan Armed Forces possess Soviet/Russian-origin combat aircraft including Su-25 ground attack jets and MiG-29 fighters — giving them the only air power in the conflict. SAF aircraft have conducted airstrikes against RSF positions in Khartoum, Omdurman, el-Fasher, and other cities. The airstrikes have caused significant civilian casualties because RSF forces embed in residential areas, hospitals, and markets, making precise targeting effectively impossible. The bombings have been condemned by the UN and human rights organizations for indiscriminate effects.
Significance
SAF air power gave the government a decisive capability advantage that has nonetheless failed to produce strategic results. RSF forces, dispersed throughout urban areas and lacking fixed military infrastructure, present no lucrative air targets. Airstrikes that destroy buildings occupied by RSF simultaneously destroy civilian homes, hospitals, and markets, generating civilian casualties that erode the government's legitimacy and complicate aid operations. The pattern repeats a lesson from Syria, Yemen, and Iraq: air power used in urban areas causes civilian harm disproportionate to its military effect against dispersed insurgents.
Both SAF and RSF forces are predominantly armed with AK-47 and Chinese Type 56 assault rifles — weapons that flooded Sudan through decades of proxy wars, arms trafficking from Libya and Chad, and direct military supply from multiple state patrons. Sudan is one of the most heavily armed societies in Africa; the combination of the Darfur conflict's arms distribution, the 2011 South Sudan split (which produced another arms glut), and ongoing flows from Libya after Gaddafi's fall created a weapons environment in which rifles are available at any price point to any combatant. RSF fighters, many recruited from nomadic communities in Darfur and Kordofan, came to the April 2023 fighting already armed.
Significance
The ubiquity of small arms in Sudan — and across the Sahel region broadly — makes disarmament after any peace agreement functionally impossible. Each of Sudan's previous civil wars produced arms distributions that armed the next conflict's combatants. The RSF itself grew from the Janjaweed militias of Darfur, which were armed by Khartoum to fight the Sudan Liberation Army, which was itself armed by various regional patrons. Each cycle of conflict produces armed groups whose weapons outlast the conflict that created them.
The RSF has reportedly received drone support through UAE networks — specifically CAIG Wing Loong II armed drones operated from bases in Libya and Chad that conduct surveillance and strike missions in support of RSF operations. The UAE's support for the RSF reflects its broader regional strategy of backing armed groups that share its interest in preventing political Islam and democratic movements in North Africa. Wing Loong drones — a Chinese system comparable to the U.S. MQ-1 Predator — can carry air-to-surface missiles and conduct hours-long surveillance missions.
Significance
The drone component of the Sudan conflict reflects the broad diffusion of armed drone capability that has occurred since 2011. The UAE has used Wing Loong drones in Libya, Yemen, and reportedly Sudan — providing precision strike capability to allies without committing Emirati personnel. The pattern establishes a new template for proxy warfare: a wealthy state can provide game-changing military technology to non-state or rebel forces through plausibly-deniable arms supply networks, shaping conflict outcomes without direct intervention.