On 29 September, the UAE alleged that Sudan’s army bombed the UAE ambassador’s residence in Khartoum during a counter-offensive that took back swathes of Sudan’s capital city from the UAE-sponsored Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia. Sudanese diplomat to the UN, Ammar Mahmoud, then posted satellite images refuting the allegations showing the building intact.

However, this evidence did not stop diplomatic missions across the world from condemning Sudan’s army. On the 14th of October, Sudanese government ministers then produced evidence denying the Emirati accusations during a press conference in Port Sudan.

Nonetheless, “evidence” validating the UAE’s claims have come from Sudanese open-source intelligence (OSINT) researcher, a Sudanese media outlet and the UAE themselves. However, our own investigation revealed the pro-RSF and UAE stances of the Sudanese researcher and media outlet. In addition, the geolocation of RSF battlefield footage shows how the militia was conducting military operations near the ambassador’s residence. Finally, the evidence put forward by the UAE has been described as “self-incriminating” given its lack of resemblance to the aftermath of an airstrike.

Dubious open-source intelligence

Open-source intelligence researchers affiliated to OSINT Sudan appeared to “verify” the Emirati claims. OSINT Sudan is a partner of the Sudan War Monitor, an outlet frequently cited as a credible source by the mainstream global media, despite its history of unfounded speculation and growing suspicions of its motives.

The OSINT Sudan team features Haytham Hamid who, on the 2nd of October, posted a satellite image from two days earlier purporting that a nearby café was on fire as proof that the UAE’s ambassador’s residence was targeted. Hamid then promised visual confirmation showing damage and smoke rising from the ambassador’s residence to prove it was bombed.

The day after that, there was still no visual confirmation, although his tweets shed light on his political biases.

- 4 October 2024: Hamid quoted the UAE foreign ministry’s statement refuting Sudan’s denial by using Emirati and RSF rhetoric with claims that the Muslim Brotherhood misled the world.

- 5 October 2024: Hamid retweets a known pro-RSF account which wrote: “the Islamists specialise in bombing embassies and diplomatic headquarters”.

A scan of Hamid’s Facebook account reveals his open support for the RSF.

- 14 April 2023: A day before the war erupted, Hamid uploaded a speech from RSF commander Himedti with a post that read: “gold is smuggled from Merowe Airport. From Himedti’s speech in Karari”. The context for this is that days before the war began, amid high tensions between the army and the RSF, the latter deployed in Merowe, northern Sudan without army approval. This was one of the final straws before the war began.

- 16 June 2023: Two months into the war, Hamid uploaded pictures of RSF troops with the caption “We are of you and for you, from the womb of this people”, which implied that the RSF is akin to the Sudanese people. Hamid’s post read: “after the severing of ties between the army and the RSF, [RSF] support is now for those who remain”.

- 14 July 2023: Hamid uploaded a picture of a wounded army soldier smiling at an RSF media figure known as Al-Jofani. The caption reads “the facial expressions of the army officer when he remembers the name given by RSF personnel to the army force moving from Hattab camp after [the soldier] was injured, captured and treated in today’s clashes in Khartoum Bahri. The name: Al-Burhan [made a regretful mistake]”.

- 5 September 2023: Hamid responded to a post that said RSF commander Himedti’s speech is “improvised, confused and suggests extreme weakness and a deep sense of defeat and bitterness. Nothing more and nothing less”. Hamid wrote: “Rather it suggests the determination to defeat the army's Islamists, the Islamists who deceive the army personnel and the citizens mobilized in a futile war to restore their ownership of the wealth of Sudan”. Hamid then made a reference to Himedti’s tribal background as a western Sudanese nomadic Arab by writing “understanding the nature of the Bedouin is a basic introduction to understanding his words and his aims”.

OSINT Sudan’s partner Sudan War Monitor has been accused of downplaying army and gains and exaggerating those of the RSF. Haytham Hamid’s Facebook post on 27 September 2024 hints at him also using OSINT Sudan for this purpose. A day earlier, the army launched a counter-offensive in Khartoum known as ‘the battle of the crossing’. Footage circulated online of the army crossing Al-Halfaya and the Medical Corps bridges, as reported by Radio Dabanga. Yet Hamid wrote: “there is no crossing, [it is just] lies. Stay tuned to OSINT Sudan’s map for the events of [yesterday]”.

On 6 October, Hamid and finally fulfilled his promise to “verify” Emirati claims that Sudan’s army bombed its ambassador’s residence in Khartoum. The image he posted was only reposted by OSINT Sudan and Sudan War Monitor. Alongside featuring the satellite images uploaded by Sudanese diplomat Ammar Mahmoud which showed how the building remained intact, there was another still that was titled “visible damage”. But where did that still come from?

Doubts about the UAE’s “proof”

The “visible damage” came from a video that first appeared on an outlet with a following exceeding 200,000 called Barq Sudan, who published a tweet that read:

“Evidence proving that the Sudanese army targeted the headquarters of the head of the UAE diplomatic mission in Khartoum. The attack represents a flagrant violation of diplomatic norms”. In an investigation, we revealed why there are credible allegations that it is a pro-UAE influence campaign given its history of promoting the UAE’s domestic policies and geopolitical interests.

Other “proof” put forward by the UAE or affiliated media were questioned for several reasons, including:

1. Doubts about how the claimed army soldier got to the residence.

2. Evidence that the RSF conducted military operations near the home.

3. UAE evidence submitted to the UN described as “self-incriminating”.

1. The home is in RSF-held territory

In another Sudan Barq video, a man claiming to be an army soldier recorded the UAE ambassador’s residence and “confirmed” that the "attack was successful”. There was skepticism about the video for several reasons.

Firstly, there were questions as to how an army soldier was able to get to the home given that it is in the south Khartoum neighbourhood of Al-Raqi, which is under RSF control. Indeed, the ambassador’s home was rented from Jamal Zarqan, a pioneering figure in Sudan’s military defence industry, who was killed by the RSF next door in July 2023.

Secondly, the video showed the building to be in tact, thereby challenging claims that an air strike targeted the ambassador’s residence.

Thirdly, the man recording sends his greetings to the commander-in-chief of Sudan’s army Abdulfattah Al-Burhan. Army soldiers do not typically communicate in this manner. By contrast, RSF fighters regularly send their greetings to the militia’s commander at the start of their videos.

2. RSF military operations near the ambassador’s residence

Denying the UAE’s allegations, Sudan’s government pointed to the RSF’s presence near the ambassador’s residence. Indeed, there is documentation of the militia’s activity either said of the UAE ambassador’s residence: Al-Cardinal’s palace around 250 meters south-west of the ambassador’s residence, and Al-Abrar mosque, around 200 metres to the east of the residence.

On 28 July 2023, RSF commander Himedti released a video titled “my words to our people and the RSF heroes during my inspection of the forces in a number of areas under our control in the capital”. Given Himedti’s suspension from the X platform, the video can be viewed through Sky News Arabia’s Facebook account.

The RSF presence was geo-located to the palace of businessman Ashraf al-Cardinal, which is around 250 meters south-west of the UAE ambassador’s residence.

In the background of the video is a nearby building, around 98 meters away.

Then, videos of RSF Katshuya rockets being launched showed Al-Abrar Mosque in the shot, which is around 200 meters to the east of the ambassador’s residence.

The direction of the RSF rockets fired from Al-Abrar mosque suggests that they were targeting Al-Shajara military district which hosts the highly strategic Armoured Corps that is about 12 kilometres to the west of the ambassador’s residence.

This means that the rockets would have passed the UAE ambassador’s residence on the way, thereby lending credence to the claims of Sudan’s government that the damage caused to the ambassador’s home were caused by RSF activity.

The broken windows at the UAE ambassador’s residence can also be attributed to shockwaves from a January 2024 precision drone strike targeting a UAE-supplied RSF howitzer placed near Al-Cardinal’s palace which destroyed the canon while keeping the building intact.

This is why veteran Sudanese journalist al-Tahir Satti told the New Arab that the RSF aims to manipulate international perceptions by provoking the army into confrontations near sensitive locations like diplomatic missions which “makes it increasingly difficult for the army to conduct operations without causing collateral damage, which the RSF seeks to exploit for propaganda."

3. Questions over UAE’s evidence to the UN

On 6 October 2024, the UAE mission to the UN submitted a document with “evidence” that the Sudanese army’s “heinous” airstrike on the UAE ambassador’s residence “resulted in extensive damage to the building and property”.

Sudanese social media users described the complaint as “self-incriminating” given that cars were not stolen as with most diplomatic missions, alongside asking who took the photos given the house sits in an RSF occupied area with the UAE embassy relocating to Port Sudan. Furthermore, photos of the damage of actual airstrikes in Khartoum showed a huge difference to the alleged “extensive damage” claimed by the UAE.

RSF attacks on diplomatic missions

While the UAE claimed that the alleged attack ensured Sudan breached the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, Sudan’s foreign ministry previously claimed that the UAE-sponsored RSF had in fact attacked over 40 diplomatic missions through the course of the war. Satellite images were broadcast on state television comparing how other diplomatic missions in Khartoum – except the UAE’s - were looted by the RSF.

While there has been extensive documentation of the RSF’s systematic campaign of looting civilian homes and aid agencies, diplomatic missions have not been spared. Amid a stream of reports of attacks on embassies and ambassador’s residences in Khartoum, the RSF have been explicitly blamed for some. While various foreign ministries that had their premises attacked opted to not name a perpetrator in their statements condemning the incidents, they nonetheless fall into a pattern of RSF looting. We covered them in the hyperlinked article.