Map: The Drone War in Kordofan

Detailed map of areas of control and recent drone attacks

Video: Burning UN logistics base in Kadugli, South Kordofan, 13 Dec. 2025

The Sudanese military stormed across North Kordofan in early 2025, capturing nearly all cities in the state and reopening the key highway between Kosti and El Obeid. Outnumbered, outgunned, and demoralized, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) fled west in a chaotic retreat.

By mid-year, however, the RSF had regrouped and the army offensive had stalled in the west, failing to penetrate West Kordofan and relieve isolated garrisons in Babanusa, Dilling, Kadugli, and An-Nahud.

The onset of a new dry season has seen the RSF regain its morale and momentum. The renegade paramilitary captured El Fasher on 26 October 2025, Babanusa on 1 December 2025, and Heglig on 8 December 2025.

Today, El Obeid is again effectively under siege. The North Kordofan capital is surrounded by RSF forces on three sides, while the only open road is targeted by RSF drones. The cities of Kadugli and Dilling likewise are besieged, and several smaller Kordofan towns once held by the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) — Um Sumeima, Al-Khowai, Barah, and Kazgil — are again in RSF hands.

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Video: Burning supply truck outside the village of Allah Kareem along the Kosti-El Obeid highway, 7 Dec. 2025

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The RSF succeeded in blunting the army’s numerical superiority by outmaneuvering it, acquiring sophisticated drones, shooting down SAF cargo planes and drones, and striking an alliance with the SPLM-North (a decades-old guerrilla movement controlling parts of the Nuba Mountains). RSF forces are almost entirely mobile, operating in columns of light combat vehicles that melt away in the face of SAF offensives, only to return and strike more vulnerable targets, including weakly defended outposts and supply lines.

The next target for the paramilitary appears to be Dilling, which the RSF has been shelling in recent days as it masses troops nearby. Dilling hosts only a brigade, not a full division, and is therefore vulnerable than El Obeid or Kadugli.

As the fighting in Kordofan grows more intense, both sides are employing drones for both short-range and long-distance attacks, terrorizing troops and civilians alike throughout the vast arid region. To help readers understand the scope of the drone war, as well as the lines of control in the Kordofan region, Sudan War Monitor prepared a map of the current situation.