Sudan’s Other War: Who Controls the Story?

Sudan’s war is being fought twice.

The first battle is on the ground, where civilians are being killed, displaced and starved. The second is over perception: who is seen as the aggressor, who is treated as legitimate and which foreign actors are held responsible for keeping the war alive.

Much of the international focus has understandably been on the appalling record of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, and allegations concerning its foreign support.

In January 2025, the United States determined that members of the RSF and allied militias had committed genocide in Sudan. A UN investigation following the RSF’s capture of El Fasher documented atrocities amounting to war crimes and potentially crimes against humanity.

None of this should be minimized. Nor should investigations into the RSF or its alleged foreign supporters be weakened.

But the horror of one force’s crimes cannot become the other force’s certificate of innocence.

The Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, is Sudan’s regular state military. But a state uniform should not automatically confer political or moral legitimacy.

Burhan and Hemedti co-led the October 2021 military takeover that seized power from Sudan’s civilian-led transitional government. The two commanders who later turned their weapons against each other had previously helped derail Sudan’s democratic transition together.

The evidence concerning the SAF itself is serious.

The United States sanctioned Burhan in January 2025. The US Treasury said the SAF had carried out lethal attacks on civilians, including airstrikes on schools, markets and hospitals, and accused it of intentionally denying humanitarian access and using food deprivation as a war tactic. Washington had already determined that members of both the SAF and RSF had committed war crimes.

Then there is the chemical-weapons issue.

In May 2025, the United States announced that it had determined that the Government of Sudan used chemical weapons in 2024 and imposed sanctions. Reporting said chlorine gas was involved, although the publicly released US determination did not provide details of the incidents. Sudanese authorities rejected the accusation.

That distinction matters. But so does the determination itself.

If such a finding concerned the RSF, would we regard it as central to understanding that force? If so, what narrative weight should it carry when it concerns the government aligned with the SAF?

This is not an argument that the SAF and RSF are identical. They are not. It is an argument for consistency.

And that brings us to the foreign actors sustaining Sudan’s war.

Beyond the RSF, is international accountability being applied evenly to all of them?

Allegations of UAE support for the RSF have rightly attracted serious scrutiny. The UAE denies arming the group.

But if foreign involvement matters when examining the RSF, why should the principle change when examining the SAF?

Reuters has reported on Iranian-made drones used by the SAF and flight-tracking data showing six journeys by an aircraft operated by Iran’s Qeshm Fars Air between Iran and Port Sudan. The US Treasury subsequently said an official in the SAF’s procurement network coordinated the acquisition of Iranian-made drones.

In March 2025, The Washington Post reported that Turkish defence company Baykar had sent at least $120 million worth of weapons to the Sudanese army, including TB2 drones and hundreds of warheads.

Egypt has also long backed the Sudanese military politically and logistically. Reuters reported in February this year on Turkish-made combat drones deployed at an Egyptian airfield near Sudan amid evidence of deeper Egyptian involvement. Egypt denies participating directly in the war.

These relationships are not identical. But accountability should not depend upon which belligerent an outside actor supports.

Follow the weapons, the technology, the money and the political relationships wherever they lead.

This is also where Sudan becomes a case study in information warfare.

We tend to think of information warfare as lies, propaganda, fabricated images, bots and increasingly AI-generated content.

But a narrative does not have to be false to mislead.

It can work through selection: which atrocity is repeated, which foreign sponsor becomes synonymous with a conflict and which facts remain beyond the central frame.

The problem is not that information about the SAF is unavailable.

Availability and visibility are not the same thing.

The United States has sanctioned Burhan. It has formally determined that Sudan’s government used chemical weapons. UN investigators have documented serious violations by both sides. The SAF’s foreign military relationships have been extensively reported.

The information exists. But does it carry the same narrative weight?

The legal battle between Sudan and the UAE illustrates the problem. Sudan accused the UAE at the International Court of Justice of violating the Genocide Convention through alleged support for the RSF. The ICJ removed the case after finding it lacked jurisdiction because of the UAE’s reservation to Article IX of the Convention.

It did not decide whether Sudan’s underlying allegations were true.

Treating the filing as proof of UAE guilt would therefore be wrong. Treating the jurisdictional dismissal as proof that the allegations were false would be wrong too.

For readers of The Times of Israel, Sudan matters directly. It sits on the Red Sea, where instability intersects with shipping, regional security and Iranian influence. In February 2023, Israel and Sudan announced they had finalized the text of a normalization agreement. Two months later, war erupted.

But the relevance goes further.

Israelis know how modern wars are fought not only over territory, but over interpretation: which images travel, which atrocities dominate discussion, whose account is believed and which side gains or loses legitimacy.

Sudan is not Israel. But the mechanisms through which wars are narrated are familiar.

Iranian involvement matters. Allegations concerning UAE support matter. Turkish weapons matter. Egypt’s relationship with the SAF matters. The chemical-weapons determination matters.

The RSF must be held accountable for its crimes. But its monstrosity cannot be allowed to rehabilitate the SAF.

The SAF wears the uniform of the Sudanese state. That does not erase its role in destroying Sudan’s democratic transition, allegations and findings concerning attacks on civilians, the US chemical-weapons determination or the foreign relationships helping it wage this war.

Because in narrative warfare, the most consequential information is not always the information that is false.

Sometimes it is the truth that remains outside the frame.