The commander of the “Sudan Shield Forces,” Abu Aqla Keikel, survived a late Saturday night drone attack that targeted his family home in the town of Al-Kahali, east of Al-Jazira State in central Sudan. The strike killed his brother Azzam and 10 members of his family, including eight children and two women.
While no group has officially claimed responsibility, suspicion has largely fallen on the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), from which Keikel had previously defected. However, given the complexity of Sudan’s war landscape, the possibility of other internal actors has not been ruled out.
Among those killed in the strike were Azzam—considered a prominent leader within the Sudan Shield Forces allied with the Sudanese army—his wife and four children, including an infant, the wife of his brother Abu Ubaida Keikel and four of his children, as well as two nephews of the Sudan Shield commander. No precise information was available regarding casualties among armed members of his forces, according to local sources.
Separately, the acting governor of Al-Gedaref State, Lieutenant General Mohamed Ahmed Hassan, confirmed in press statements on Sunday that drones had targeted the Eastern Command headquarters in Al-Faw, as well as several civilian homes, resulting in losses.
Addressing members of his government at the state headquarters, he stated, “The war is not over yet,” adding that the coming rounds would be significant. He called on young people to take up arms and join training camps to confront the enemy.
In the context of these coordinated attacks, residents in Omdurman—Sudan’s second-largest city within the capital region—reported hearing powerful explosions early Sunday morning across various neighborhoods. Posts circulating widely on Facebook suggested the blasts were caused by drone strikes, though the exact locations targeted remain unclear.
Media sources aligned with the Sudanese army reported that air defense systems successfully shot down a number of suicide drones over Omdurman, believed to have been launched by the RSF.
