Sudan's paramilitary Rapid Support Forces launched drone strikes on capital Khartoum and other army-controlled cities on Wednesday, an AFP correspondent, witnesses and an army source said, in what appeared to be their largest coordinated attack in months.
Since April 2023, Sudan has been ravaged by war between its regular military, led by army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the RSF, commanded by Burhan's former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo.
The capital Khartoum, which was recaptured by the army last year, has been targeted by drone strikes before but enjoyed relative calm for months.
A source in the army said the RSF attacked the capital, the Kordofan city of El-Obeid, and the northern cities of Atbara and El-Damer "with a large number of drones, which our anti-aircraft defences engaged with".
El-Obeid is located nearly 400 kilometres (248 miles) from Khartoum and around 650 kilometres from Atbara.
An AFP correspondent in the capital reported a drone attack at 5 am (0300 GMT) along with the sound of anti-aircraft missiles from the direction of the army's Wadi Seidna base, just north of the twin city of Omdurman.
In Khartoum North (Bahri), just across the Nile River, two drones hit a mosque and an electricity transformer in the El-Droshab area, according to an eyewitness.
It was not immediately clear if air defences had shot them down.
Witnesses in the northern cities of Atbara and El-Damer -- both also under army control -- gave similar reports of hearing explosions and seeing drones in the sky.
Some 120 kilometres southeast, in the town of Tamboul, civilians were in a "state of fear" after drones appeared above them, a witness told AFP.
There were no immediate reports of casualties in the attacks, including in the Khartoum North mosque which worshippers had recently emptied after dawn prayers.
Across the country, aid workers estimate more than 200,000 people have been killed in what the UN calls a "war of atrocities". The conflict has also caused the world's largest hunger and displacement crises.
Retaliatory strike
The RSF has seemed to be on the back foot since the army last month pushed them off a key highway connecting Khartoum to El-Obeid, the southern Kordofan region's largest city, which they had tried to seize for months.
Daglo in the aftermath said he would "unleash" his fighters -- already accused of war crimes including genocide -- and his fighters have since repeatedly threatened a large-scale retaliatory attack.
Burhan and Daglo, allies until they fell out in a bitter power struggle, have spent most of the war in a relative stalemate, unwilling to hold negotiations while vying for a decisive battlefield advantage.
The RSF last year consolidated its hold on the vast western region of Darfur, and has since pushed to seize territory in Kordofan and along the southeastern Ethiopian border.
The army holds the country's centre, north and east, and has tried to project an image of a return to normalcy in areas it controls.
But in Khartoum, 2.3 million people have returned from displacement, only to find vast amounts of uncleared war remnants, dilapidated infrastructure and limited electricity and water.
According to an eyewitness, Wednesday's drone attack "caused an explosion in an electricity transformer" in Khartoum North, where over half a million people already live without power.
Even parts of the city that have had more reliable services than Khartoum North have been without power for weeks.
