Harris, Biden advisor objected to UAE arming Sudan's Rapid Support Forces: Report
The UAE has turned a Red Crescent hospital into a military staging ground to support the Rapid Support Forces in Sudan’s civil war, The New York Times reported.
The UAE has turned an airfield it says supports hospital work in Amdjarass, Chad, into a base to fly Chinese-made armed drones that the RSF use to surveil and identify enemy targets. The UAE has also established a drone control system and drone hangars around the hospital, the report said.
US officials learned last year that the $20m hospital constructed by the UAE in neighbouring Chad was being used to ship weapons to the RSF in Sudan. Since then they have raised concerns with the UAE but have had limited impact in changing its behaviour, according to the NYT.
In May, US President Joe Biden’s national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, cited American intelligence about the UAE’s activities in a call with his Emirati counterpart.
Sullivan’s call came after US Vice President Harris said the US objected to the UAE’s arms smuggling in Sudan in a December meeting with UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan.
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According to the NYT, the Emirati leader offered what appeared to be “a tacit acknowledgement”, saying that the UAE owed RSF commander Mohammad Hamdan Dagalo, better known as Hemeti, for providing mercenaries who had fought alongside the UAE in Yemen. He also told Harris he believed Dagalo was a bulwark against Islamists in the region.
Dagalo’s RSF is locked in a convoluted proxy war with the Sudanese military that has sucked in the US’s partners and foes.
Unlike previous conflicts that rocked the region after the 2011 Arab Spring, Sudan’s battlefield is more chaotic and has close US partners siding against each other.
According to the NYT, Houthis in Yemen sent shiploads of weapons to Sudan’s military at Iran’s request, while gas-rich Qatar sent six Chinese warplanes. Egypt has also supported the military which is led by army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan
Sudan is also becoming a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and the UAE. According to the NYT, Riyadh is giving Burhan's army money to buy Iranian drones. Russia first backed the RSF, but according to officials, it has now switched sides to back Sudan’s military.
However, the UAE’s support for Sudan appears to have impacted the battlefield the most, according to the NYT.
The report cited a diplomatic memo sent by the EU’s ambassador to Sudan noting that the UAE’s “delivery of drones, howitzers, multiple rocket launchers and MANPADS…has helped [the RSF] neutralize the air superiority of Sudan’s military", Aidan O’Hara, wrote in February in a confidential memo obtained by NYT.
In a joint statement on Monday, Biden and Nahyan stressed that there can be no military solution to the conflict in Sudan and underscored their “firm and unwavering position” to achieve a “lasting cessation of hostilities” in the war, the White House said in a statement.
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