KHARTOUM: Paramilitary drones targeted Khartoum International Airport on Wednesday for a second consecutive day, a Sudanese military source told AFP.
The source, who spoke anonymously because he was not authorized to brief the media, said “drones targeted Khartoum airport once again at dawn” on Wednesday.
He added that army air defenses intercepted the drones he said had been launched by a “terrorist militia” — a reference to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which have been fighting the army since April 2023.
Sudan’s Civil Aviation Authority had said the airport would reopen on Wednesday, with domestic flights resuming gradually after technical and operational preparations were completed.
But no further announcements on the reopening were made after Tuesday’s attack and it remains unclear whether operations will go ahead as planned following the latest strikes.
On Tuesday, witnesses reported hearing numerous explosions in an area near the airport in the early morning. The facility appeared intact during a visit later that day by army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan.
Speaking from inside the airport, Burhan said the army was “determined to crush this rebellion” — a reference to the RSF led by his former ally Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.
The RSF has not claimed responsibility for the attacks, but has been repeatedly accused of using drones to target military and civilian infrastructure in recent months.
In a speech released late on Tuesday on social media, Dagalo asserted the RSF “attacks military positions only” and vowed to remove the army, which he called a “cancer.”
Khartoum has seen a relative lull in ground fighting since the army retook parts of the capital earlier this year, but drone strikes have continued amid ongoing efforts by the government to restore services and relocate key institutions back from the de facto capital of Port Sudan on the Red Sea.
Paramilitary drones target Khartoum airport for second day
https://arab.news/m9qda
Paramilitary drones target Khartoum airport for second day
- Sudan’s Civil Aviation Authority had said the airport would reopen on Wednesday
A man detonates explosive belt during arrest attempt in Iraq, injuring 2 security members
- The raid was being conducted in the Al-Khaseem area in Qaim district that borders Syria
- No members of the security forces were killed
BAGHDAD: A man wearing an explosives belt blew himself up Friday while a security force was trying to arrest him in western Iraq near the Syrian border, killing himself and wounding two security members, an Iraqi security official said.
The raid was being conducted in the Al-Khaseem area in Qaim district that borders Syria, said the official who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.
The official added that “preliminary information” confirms that no members of the security forces were killed, while two personnel were injured and transferred for medical treatment.
Iraq’s National Security Agency said in a statement that its members besieged a hideout of a Daesh group security official and two of his bodyguards. One bodyguard ignited his explosives belt, killing him. It gave no further details.
Daesh once controlled large parts of Syria and Iraq and declared a caliphate in 2014. The extremist group was defeated on the battlefield in Iraq in 2017 and in Syria in 2019 but its sleeper cells still carry out deadly attacks in both countries.
In December, two US service members and an American civilian were killed in an attack in Syria that the United States blamed on Daesh. The US carried out strikes on Syria days later in retaliation.
US and Iraqi authorities in January began transferring hundreds of the nearly 9,000 Daesh members held in jails run by the US-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in northeast Syria to Iraq, where Iraqi authorities plan to prosecute them.
