How a drone strike on a tribal leader in Northern Darfur may reshape the Sudan war

On 22 February, Sudan's influential tribal chief, Musal Hilal, met with friends and relatives to break their Ramadan fast in Misteriha, a village in North Darfur.

They didn't expect a drone to strike their gathering after sundown.

The attack reportedly killed 28 civilians—men, women and children—and injured one of Hilal's sons, according to the Sudan Doctors Network, a local monitor. Another of his sons was captured after the RSF seized the town the next day.

Hilal reportedly escaped from Darfur and reached areas controlled by the regular army, known as the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF).

"Nobody until now knows exactly where he has gone, but it seems the RSF decided to attack his area since it was the last town in Darfur outside of its control," said Mohamed el-Fatih Yousef, a journalist from the region and the founder of the local outlet Darfur24.

Tribal rivalry

Since an all-out civil war erupted between SAF and the RSF in April 2023, Hilal and his tribal loyalists have sided with the former.

His allegiance with SAF has compounded his rivalry with RSF leader Mohamad Hamdan "Hemedti" Dagalo. Both men hail from the nomadic Rizegat "Arab" tribe, a community that makes up the bulk of the RSF’s leadership.

The tribe has many clans: Hilal is from the Mahamid clan, while Hemedti is from the Mahariya clan.

Observers believe that Hilal’s tribal status as a sheikh has long posed a threat to Hemedti's authority over Arab tribes in Darfur, which he wields through the power and wealth he has accrued as head of the RSF.

A relative of Hilal, who requested anonymity to protect relatives in North Darfur from possible reprisal, said that some of the sheikh's own men took part in the ground attack on Misteriha.

"The [RSF] force that entered Misteriha was led by members of the Mahamid tribe, allied with Hemedti, from Misteriha itself, as well as Mahamid from western and central Darfur," the source told TNA.

While the RSF admitted to raiding Misteriha, the group's political wing, the Sudan Founding Alliance (TASIS), denied responsibility for the apparent assassination attempt the night before.

TASIS accused SAF of launching the drone to sow tribal strife; a claim TNA is unable to verify. What's clear is that both SAF and the RSF heavily rely on drones to make advances on the battlefield.

Throughout the war, the RSF has also killed and expelled sedentary farming "non-Arab" groups in West Darfur and in North Darfur before settling on their land, drawing credible accusations of ethnic cleansing and genocide from UN experts and researchers.

The RSF now appears to be targeting real and perceived opponents within their own tribal base out of fear that rivals could help SAF settle scores one day.

"Anyone who supports the enemy, from the perspective of the Arabs of Darfur, is considered an enemy himself," said Hilal's relative.

Friend to foe

Hilal and Hemedti fought together during the first Darfur war that devoured the region in 2003. Back then, several mainly non-Arab rebel groups launched a rebellion against the central government to protest the political and economic marginalisation of their people.

The government, then headed by autocratic President Omar al-Bashir, responded by ordering SAF to mobilise and arm Arab tribal militias to lead a counter-insurgency.

Hilal and his men proceeded to uproot entire non-Arab communities from their lands, chasing tens of thousands of victims into sprawling and crowded internally displaced camps.

Human rights groups accused Hilal's forces of carrying out atrocity crimes that amount to ethnic cleansing and possibly genocide. At the time, Hemedti was a younger, lesser-known fighter.

"Hilal used to be the commander of Hemedti, and now Hemedti is on top…these two people are very similar," said Hafez Mohamed, a Sudanese human rights activist who runs the local monitor Justice Africa.

In 2014, Hilal had a fallout with al-Bashir during a brief lull in fighting in Darfur. He blamed the former president for marginalising Darfur's Arab tribes and vowed to rebel against the central government.

Al-Bashir countered by recruiting Hemedti and tasked him with commanding a new force that repackaged many of Darfur's Arab tribal militias into the RSF.

Flushed with money and power, Hemedti led a unit into Misteriha to arrest Hilal for refusing to disarm in 2017.

Hilal was released four years later, during the fragile democratic transition, when Hemedti wielded significant power in the post-Bashir government. But after the civil war erupted two years later, Hilal sided with SAF.

"One of the reasons the RSF attacked Misteriha is because they expected Hilal to eventually lead a tribal rebellion with support from the army," said Amani Hamid, a nurse originally from North Darfur.

Soaring tensions

Problems had been building for weeks leading up to the RSF's raid on Hilal's residence.

In January, a Mahamid tribal leader and a prominent advisor for the RSF, Hamid Ali Abubakar, was killed in a drone strike in central Darfur.

The RSF accused Hilal of being behind the attack, a claim that TNA is unable to verify.

Then, two weeks ago, Hilal accused the RSF's second-in-command, Abdel Raheem Dagalo, of distributing weapons and money to Mahamid fighters if they pledged allegiance to the RSF.

"I think the timing of the raid on Misteriha has to do partly with Hilal's bold statement [against Abdelraheem Dagalo] at this time," said Hamid, the nurse from North Darfur.

Local sources believe Hilal could form an alliance with non-Arab armed groups. Many of those groups fled to the Chadian border after they were routed from North Darfur's capital of El-Fasher in October during the RSF's genocidal offensive to seize the city.

The irony is that Hilal gained notorious fame, money, and power by acting as a government proxy to fight against the same groups in 2003.

Abubakr Ahmed, a non-Arab fighter from North Darfur now in Chad, told TNA that he expects Hilal and his devoted followers to soon join his men.

He said that they all share a common goal: To stop the RSF from cementing its rule over Darfur.

"In due time, it's possible that we all mobilise together and join forces. I expect Musa Hilal to fight alongside us," Ahmed told TNA.