Bin Zayed’s War on Sudan Fails Despite Israeli Support and American–British Complicity
Abdulnabi Shaheen – Riyadh
The United Arab Emirates has repeatedly denied any involvement in the Sudan war through the provision of weapons, money, and mercenaries to R.S.F. or Hemedti’s militia,and it has so far failed to convince any country in the world in this regard. Recently, Washington has imposed sanctions on seven Emirati companies, involved in gold trading and arms deals. Additionally Western media outlets have published evidence and information confirming that such support continues to this day.
It is true that the United Arab Emirates may have managed, through money, to buy the loyalty of a number of leaders in countries neighboring Sudan—such as Chad and Ethiopia—as well as General Haftar the UAE’s agent in Libya. It also succeeded in neutralizing Saudi Arabia and Egypt during the first two years of the war. However, its joint project with Israel in Sudan has failed as a result of the Sudanese people standing firmly behind their national army against the Rapid Support Forces militia, which is backed—perhaps under Israeli direction.
Everyone is watching the rapid advances of the Sudanese Armed Forces, which have expelled the Rapid Support Forces militia from the capital, Khartoum, and from tens of thousands of citizens’ homes that the militia had previously occupied and lived in across the city. The army also drove the militia out—fleeing like frightened rats—from Gezira and Sennar states, before halting their advance toward the rest of northern and eastern Sudan. It is now pursuing them in the areas they still control in Kordofan and Darfur states.
Most Sudanese—and only a few Arabs—have heard or read about the statement made in 2008 by Israeli Minister of Internal Security Avi Dichter, who said:
“Sudan, with its resources, vast area, and population, constitutes strategic depth for Egypt, and it became training bases for it after the 1967 war. We have to work to weaken it and prevent it from building a strong, unified state in order to support our national security. We have, therefore,
created and escalated the Darfur problem so they would have no time to strengthen their capabilities. This is the same strategy we implemented in South Sudan, which succeeded in pushing Sudan toward crisis and division, and these conflicts will end with its partition into several entities.”
Before the outbreak of the war, Israel was in contact with both sides simultaneously. However, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs leaned toward al-Burhan and the Sudanese army, while the Mossad leaned toward the Rapid Support Forces militia led by Hemedti. When the war broke out, Israel decided to adopt the Mossad’s option—without direct involvement in the Sudan war—through direct intelligence support, in addition to backing the UAE and assisting it in arming Hemedti’s militia with the latest lethal weapons, various types of drones, defensive systems, and jamming and surveillance equipment.
Earlier, in 2019, Hemedti signed a contract with a lobbying firm, founded by a former Israeli intelligence operative, and held meetings with Israeli intelligence. In May 2022, it was reported that a secret delegation delivered advanced surveillance technologies to Hemedti, the commander of the Rapid Support Forces, without any reaction from the army commander in chief al-Burhan—an attitude that astonished observers and angered many army officers who had originally rejected the presence of the Rapid Support Forces as part of the army.
Independent researchers have documented what are believed to be Israeli-made LAR-160 rocket launchers said to be in the possession of the Rapid Support Forces militia—weapons manufactured exclusively in Israel. An investigation by Sudan Transparency also revealed that communication channels have been opened between Israeli intelligence and Hemedti since 2021. Meanwhile, Israeli journalists wrote about a proposal to exile Hamas leaders to Sudan, making the outcome of the Sudan war part of Israel’s broader strategic calculations.
As for Britain, it has indeed been involved in prolonging the war by shielding the UAE, the largest supporter of the Rapid Support Forces militia, despite the fact that British military equipment sold to the UAE found its way into the hands of the militia in Sudan. This represents, at the very least, a glaring failure of British export controls. Moreover, hundreds of retired Colombian soldiers have been recruited to fight alongside the Rapid Support Forces through companies registered in the United Kingdom and linked to a modest apartment in Tottenham, north London, according to confirmations by the U.S. Treasury Department.
American and British involvement in Sudan’s devastating war has also been evident in the deliberate diplomatic neglect of the Sudan file and the failure to enforce arms export control laws—an approach many Western experts themselves consider to be actual complicity, compounded by the insistence on protecting the UAE and keeping it in a mediation role.
Ultimately, after three years of fierce fighting, the Sudanese army and its allied forces—including armed Darfuri movements, Islamist-leaning factions such as the Al-Baraa ibn Malik Brigade, a military faction led by Abu Aqla Kikel, and thousands of Sudanese volunteers—have succeeded in defeating Hemedti’s militia and driving it westward toward Darfur. All military assessments indicate that its final defeat in Darfur, from where this militia originated, is imminent.