A Second Day of Drones Over Omdurman, and Still No RSF Statement Claiming Any of It

On Wednesday morning drones struck El Obeid, Atbara, Omdurman and Khartoum Bahri, according to Sudan Tribune’s Arabic service; Monte Carlo Doualiya listed Khartoum, El Obeid, Atbara and Al-Damer. Reuters, citing witnesses, reported eight drones over El Obeid, army air defences engaging, and two people killed with others injured per medical sources — though Sudan Tribune’s account attributes those deaths to falling drone debris rather than a direct strike. Reuters noted the Khartoum and Atbara attacks were the first on those cities since May. The physical damage is documented rather than merely alleged: AFP’s Ebrahim Hamid photographed a struck mosque compound in El Droshab, Khartoum North, and an electrical transformer hit in the same district; Reuters' El Tayeb Siddig shot a collapsed mosque wall in Bahri. On Thursday army air defences engaged low-flying drones approaching western Omdurman from the west, per military sources and witnesses.

Reuters reads the campaign as an RSF response to reverses: the group “has found itself on the back foot lately” and has stepped up drone and land attacks after losses on several fronts. The material change came on 26 July, when, per The New Arab’s analysis, the SAF captured a major highway to secure its supply line into El Obeid — a city that, in that outlet’s phrase, sits at a crossroads between army-held northern and eastern Sudan. On 3 August the SAF chief of staff, Yasir al-Atta, told assembled fighters the army was advancing on all axes to eliminate the RSF before the end of the year, citing gains along the Omdurman–El Obeid road. He spoke alongside the Mahamid tribal leader Musa Hilal and a defected general. On Thursday the SAF and allied Joint Forces said they repelled a major RSF assault on Jabrat al-Shaikh in North Kordofan.

Assessment: Two days of strikes on five cities and not one claim of responsibility. That gap matters: every headline this week names the RSF as author on the strength of witnesses and army air-defence accounts, which is probably right and is nonetheless unverified. The El Obeid death toll should be handled carefully until the direct-strike and falling-debris versions are reconciled. The more durable item is Musa Hilal standing next to al-Atta. A Darfuri Arab notable on an SAF platform, as the army claims momentum on the Omdurman–El Obeid road, is a constituency being courted, and it will outlast this week’s drone count.