Issue No. 80

The Age of Drones

Last week, for the first time, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) conducted several drone strikes in Port Sudan on the Red Sea, penetrating deep into the Sudanese army's heartlands. These strikes-- coming just a few weeks after the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) recaptured the symbolic Republican Palace in Khartoum-- threaten to open a grim new chapter in the devastating war. An apparent mixture of kamikaze swarm drones alongside more sophisticated Chinese-manufactured CH-95s, the highly disruptive attacks mark a significant escalation of the RSF's capacities, which is likely to make vital humanitarian and diplomatic coordination out of the port city even more complex. But the injection of more sophisticated drones by the Sudanese paramilitaries onto the battlefield further points to the increasing use of these armaments by both state and, increasingly, non-state actors alike in the Horn of Africa.

Drone technology represented some of the first glimpses of the now incestuous and uneven relationship between political actors in the Gulf and the Horn. Today, drone warfare and usage have proliferated across the Horn of Africa, in no small part due to the injection of weaponry by Gulf powers for their favoured belligerents and allies. The UAE, Iran and Türkiye, in particular, have led the charge in mid-priced and effective drone warfare, with the Bayraktar-produced and Iranian Mohajer-6 drones some of the most popular in conflicts around the world today. The latter proved pivotal in the retaking of Khartoum by the Sudanese army from the paramilitaries earlier this year, but wrought immense damage to the city. And though often not a 'silver bullet' in armed conflicts, they have proved increasingly a favoured weapon of choice in conflicts across the Horn-- and beyond. The Houthis, too, have seized headlines for their campaign targeting nominally Israeli-linked shipping transiting through the arterial waterway of the Gulf of Aden and Red Sea with a mixture of armed drones and missiles.

There are several reasons behind the preferred use of drones: enabling belligerents to strike deep into territory beyond their control, targeting clusters of fighters, key infrastructure, or, more generally, instilling fear in the 'enemy' population. With state presence constricting amid sustained instability across multiple countries in the region, drones are proving an effective way of managing insurgencies without deploying significant numbers of soldiers to the battlefield. 

Ethiopia has been at the epicentre of this shift, with Turkish and Emirati-bought drones playing a seismic role in the 2020-2022 Tigray war, turning the tide on the advancing Tigrayan fighters in mid-2021. By the end of the year, Ethiopia was operating Iranian Mohajer-6 drones,  Chinese Wing Loong II, and Bayraktar TB2 drones after Addis and Ankara agreed upon a bilateral defence deal. Abu Dhabi was likewise central in facilitating the delivery of drones to the Abiy Ahmed government, its closest ally in the Horn of Africa. The injections of these drones into Addis are symptomatic of the militarised power projection and influence Gulf powers are seeking to project on both sides of the Red Sea.

But during the Tigray war and beyond, these drones have been implicated in a host of human rights violations, with significant numbers of civilians killed in strikes. In one instance, 28 civilians were slain when drone strikes hit a market in Alamata in Tigray, likely a Wing Loong with Chinese 'Blue Arrow' armaments. And Addis continues to operate these drones against the insurgencies in Oromia and Amhara despite objections from a host of human rights organisations. But the limits of drone warfare have also been apparent in both instances, proving unable to comprehensively defeat either the Oromo Liberation Army or the increasingly cohesive Fano militias. Indeed, the killing of significant numbers of civilians through drone strikes has arguably only helped endear Oromo and Amhara communities to these insurgencies.

Somalia, too, has been at the coalface of the changing nature of drone warfare in Africa. Unlike Ethiopia, where the government operates a monopoly over armed drones, a severe lack of capacity has restricted Somalia's federal government's ability to deploy such armaments. Still, in late 2021, the UN Panel of Experts reported that Ankara had dispatched Bayraktar TB2 drones to Mogadishu, breaking the sanctions restrictions by failing to report it. However, it is a coalition of international partners in Somalia that dominate the country's drone warfare, namely the UAE, Turkiye and the US-- with or without the permission of the federal government. Amid the rapid advances of Al-Shabaab towards Mogadishu in recent months, discussions over drone strikes against the jihadist group have also surged.

In March, Ankara supplied more advanced Akıncı UCAVs to the federal government, paid for by Qatar on behalf of Mogadishu. The difference between the Akıncı and TB2 is significant, with the estimated payload of an Akıncı being 1350kg, far greater than the Bayraktar TB2, which has a capacity of just 150kg. But with Villa Somalia lacking either the political will or a military strategy to combat Al-Shabaab, the use of 'defensive' strikes has its limitations, even if able to inflict considerable casualties and scatter the jihadists' leadership from Jilib. Further, some have suggested that the use of drones may even accelerate the advance of Al-Shabaab, pushing them deeper and faster into towns to avoid their massed forces being targeted in rural areas.

The MQ-9 Reaper remains one of the preferred drones deployed by AFRICOM in Somalia, based out of Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti. Able to fly for up to 27 hours and possessing a 1700kg payload, the MQ-9 Reaper is one of the most advanced in the world today, while strikes by the US military fall under two categories-- kinetic and collective self-defence, which are used to support its partner forces in Somalia and elsewhere. With the new Trump administration having eased restrictions, MQ-9 Reapers have conducted dozens of strikes on targets in Puntland against Islamic State-Somalia (ISS), as well as Al-Shabaab in central-southern Somalia, already this year. 

But it is not just foreign governments that are developing their drone capacity at alarming rates. Puntland-led operations against ISS have also revealed an increasing technological sophistication in suicide drones by the militant group in the Al-Miskaad Mountains as well. Until recently, terrorist drone usage in Africa had been overwhelmingly passive-defensive for surveillance, propaganda, and intelligence-gathering. But in February and March, ISS launched several suicide drones, small quadcopters with explosives strapped to them, at advancing Puntland troops, causing several deaths. And critically, unlike the RSF's deployment against Port Sudan last week, the ISS's weaponisation of drones has been largely organic. Puntland's position as a trafficking armaments hub on the Gulf of Aden has made it a perfect melting pot for ISS and Al-Shabaab to develop their arsenals, often buying cheap commercial drones from Asia that are difficult to down because of the diminutive profile. Subsequently, these suicide drones pose a radically different threat to the Akıncı or MQ-9 Reapers, able to smash into buildings or vehicles and eliminate high-profile targets such as senior commanders away from the frontlines. So, too, are jamming and counter-drone technologies becoming increasingly important. 

Al-Shabaab is similarly developing its own armed drone capacity. In January 2020, Al-Shabaab deployed drones to record, and possibly even coordinate, the assault on the US military base in Manda Bay in Kenya, which killed three Americans. But in recent months, under the guidance of US citizen Jehad Serwan Mostafa and Abdullahi Osman Mohamed, also known as 'Engineer Ismail,' Al-Shabaab has sought to actively expand weaponry systems, particularly suicide drones through its developing relationship with the Houthi militants in Yemen. It may simply be a matter of time before Al-Shabaab deploys armed drones to the battlefield, having flown quadcopters over Villa Somalia earlier this year, which could radically alter the security of the international compound at Halane. And looking ahead, the next step would be the launching of maritime drones from the African coast-- most likely from either Sudan or Somalia-- at a target on the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden, or western Indian Ocean.

Amid these advances in drone technologies, militaries across the world are scrambling to reformulate their tactics, as well as their cumbersome materiel that can be easily taken out by a suicide drone. But in the Horn, the lack of drone defence infrastructure and jamming systems makes these armaments even more appealing. More broadly, the RSF's attacks on Port Sudan are symptomatic of a number of coalescing trends, not just in Sudan but across the region of higher-end technologies being deployed in conflicts. And in these ethnicised and highly polarised wars, drone strikes are simply another tool in the arsenal-- alongside denying humanitarian assistance, for instance-- in efforts to intimidate and wipe out the 'enemy' populations. 

The Horn Edition Team