Paramilitary launches drones, ground attacks across Sudan

People clear the debris from the complex of a mosque that was hit by a drone strike in the El-Droshab area of Khartoum North, on August 12, 2026. [AFP]

Drones targeted the Sudanese capital Khartoum on Thursday as paramilitary forces launched ground attacks on central Sudan and the southeastern Ethiopian border, an AFP correspondent and sources from the rival sides reported.

Since April 2023, Sudan has been ravaged by war between the Sudanese military, led by its chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, commanded by Burhan's former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo.

Drones and anti-aircraft missiles were seen over Khartoum on Thursday for the second day in a row, as army and paramilitary sources reported RSF attacks across the country.

Southwest of Khartoum, the paramilitary launched a counteroffensive on the highway connecting the capital with the southern Kordofan region's largest city, El-Obeid.

An army source reported "an attack with a large number of vehicles on the town of Jabret al-Sheikh, which was preceded by drone strikes".

An RSF source confirmed a battle was ongoing there as well as the town of Bara further south, which both sides have struggled to hold as they wrestle for control over El-Obeid's northern axis.

Both sources requested anonymity because they were not authorised to brief the media.

On Thursday, an AFP correspondent in the capital reported anti-aircraft missiles fired from Omdurman, Khartoum's twin city, followed by the sound of an explosion.

"Military air defences engaged with the militia's drones and downed them," an army source told AFP.

Witnesses in central Khartoum and Khartoum North, across the Nile river, also reported seeing drones in the sky and hearing explosions.

Multi-pronged

A second RSF attack was reported on the town of Kurmuk, on the southeastern border with Ethiopia, which the army had recaptured last month.

The RSF source said the paramilitary had "liberated" the town in the attack, which the army official said was the latest launched "from inside Ethiopian territory".

Ethiopia has denied harbouring RSF fighters, though local sources say the porous border is a key supply line for the RSF and its allies.

The latest attacks come a day after the RSF launched far-reaching coordinated drone strikes targeting five army-controlled cities hundreds of kilometres apart.

The RSF had seemed to be on the back foot since the army last month pushed them off the Khartoum-El-Obeid highway, strangling their bid to seize Kordofan.

Daglo in the aftermath said he would "unleash" his fighters -- already accused of war crimes including genocide -- and his fighters have since repeatedly threatened a large-scale retaliatory attack.

Burhan and Daglo, allies until they fell out in a bitter power struggle, have spent most of the war in a relative stalemate, unwilling to hold negotiations while vying for a decisive battlefield advantage.

The RSF last year consolidated its hold on the vast western region of Darfur, and has since pushed to seize territory in Kordofan and along the southeastern Ethiopian border.

The army holds the country's centre, north and east, and has tried to project an image of a return to normalcy in areas it controls.

Across the country, aid workers estimate more than 200,000 people have been killed in what the UN calls a "war of atrocities". The conflict has also caused the world's largest hunger and displacement crises.