Drone Attack Strikes Sudan Capital 

A shelter where displaced people protect themselves from the shelling in El-Fasher, Sudan, October 7, 2025. (Reuters)
A shelter where displaced people protect themselves from the shelling in El-Fasher, Sudan, October 7, 2025. (Reuters)
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Drone Attack Strikes Sudan Capital 

A shelter where displaced people protect themselves from the shelling in El-Fasher, Sudan, October 7, 2025. (Reuters)
A shelter where displaced people protect themselves from the shelling in El-Fasher, Sudan, October 7, 2025. (Reuters)

A series of drone attacks targeted the Sudanese capital Khartoum for multiple hours on Wednesday, eyewitnesses and an army source told AFP.

A military official said the army had shot down "most of the drones", which targeted two army bases in the capital's northwest.

Sudan's army has been at war since April 2023 with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, who have regularly attacked army positions using drones.

The war has killed tens of thousands of people and created the world's largest hunger and displacement crises.

The capital has been mostly calm since the army regained control earlier this year, with fighting for territory now concentrated in the country's south and west.

But the RSF has been repeatedly accused of carrying out long-range drone attacks on military and civilian infrastructure.

Eyewitnesses in Omdurman, part of greater Khartoum, said they saw drones flying over the city and heard "loud explosions coming from the north" throughout the night on Wednesday.

It was the second day in a row drone strikes targeted the capital, according to the Sudan Shield Forces.

The armed group, an ally of the army, said two of its members were killed on Tuesday by a drone in the East Nile district of Khartoum.

The Sudan Shield Forces are commanded by Abu Aqla Kaykal, who last year defected from the RSF to the army, helping pave the way for the military's gains. His forces have been accused of atrocities on both sides.

Following the army's offensive and recapture of Khartoum, over 800,000 people have returned to their homes.

The army-backed government has launched a vast reconstruction program and is looking to move its officials back from the wartime capital of Port Sudan.

Vast swathes of Khartoum are still devastated and lack reliable access to services, with millions of people regularly experiencing blackouts as a result of the RSF's long-range drone attacks.

The paramilitary's fiercest attacks are in the western region of Darfur, where RSF fighters have surrounded and attempted to seize the city of El-Fasher for close to 18 months.

If it succeeds, the RSF will control all of Darfur and, with its allies, parts of Sudan's south, while the army holds the center, east and north.

El-Fasher is Darfur's last major city to elude the RSF's grasp, and has become the war's most important strategic front.

The UN says over 400,000 civilians are trapped in the city, where mass starvation has taken hold and daily attacks rip through mosques and hospitals.

The RSF has attacked multiple famine-hit displacement camps, and the UN has warned of mass ethnic killing.



Sudan Appoints Yassir al-Atta Armed Forces Chief of Staff

A man walks while smoke rises above buildings after aerial bombardment, during clashes between the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and the army in Khartoum North, Sudan, May 1, 2023. REUTERS/Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah/File Photo
A man walks while smoke rises above buildings after aerial bombardment, during clashes between the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and the army in Khartoum North, Sudan, May 1, 2023. REUTERS/Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah/File Photo
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Sudan Appoints Yassir al-Atta Armed Forces Chief of Staff

A man walks while smoke rises above buildings after aerial bombardment, during clashes between the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and the army in Khartoum North, Sudan, May 1, 2023. REUTERS/Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah/File Photo
A man walks while smoke rises above buildings after aerial bombardment, during clashes between the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and the army in Khartoum North, Sudan, May 1, 2023. REUTERS/Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah/File Photo

Sudan has appointed General Yassir al-Atta, a member of the country's Sovereign Council and assistant to the commander-in-chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, chief of staff of the country's Armed Forces, a military spokesman told Reuters on Thursday.

The move is the most significant personnel shift since the Sudanese army's war with the Rapid Support Forces three years ago, and could lead to shifts in strategy as a new front opens in the war in the southeastern Blue Nile state.

Al-Atta takes over the role of chief of staff from career soldier Othman al-Hussein, giving him less of a political role but tighter control of the armed forces.


A Month into War, Lebanon's Prime Minister Says No End in Sight 

Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam speaks to reporters at the Grand Serail in Beirut, December 3, 2025. (Reuters)
Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam speaks to reporters at the Grand Serail in Beirut, December 3, 2025. (Reuters)
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A Month into War, Lebanon's Prime Minister Says No End in Sight 

Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam speaks to reporters at the Grand Serail in Beirut, December 3, 2025. (Reuters)
Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam speaks to reporters at the Grand Serail in Beirut, December 3, 2025. (Reuters)

Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said on Thursday there was no end in sight to a war that had already displaced a million people over the last month, as families fleeing Israeli strikes said they were exhausted by repeated rounds of conflict. Lebanon is entering the second month of conflict between Iran-backed armed group Hezbollah and Israel, which has pledged to occupy swathes of southern Lebanon as part of a "security zone" to protect its own northern residents.

"Lebanon has become a victim of a war - one whose outcomes and end date no one can predict," Salam told reporters on Thursday after a meeting of his cabinet, Reuters reported.
"The positions of Israeli officials, and the practices of their army, reveal far-reaching goals, including a significant expansion in the occupation of Lebanese territories, dangerous talk about establishing buffer zones or security belts, and the displacement of more than one million Lebanese," Salam said.

Israel's assertion that its military will retain control of southern Lebanon has fuelled fears of a long-term occupation, after a two-decade Israeli presence ended in 2000.

Salam said his government would redouble diplomatic and political efforts to end the war. A call by Lebanese President Joseph Aoun for direct talks with Israel has so far received no response.

SALAM SALUTES LEBANESE STILL IN SOUTH

Israel has continued to carry out strikes on Lebanon after a 2024 ceasefire ended its last war with Hezbollah, while keeping troops stationed on five hilltop positions in southern Lebanon.

Israel launched a full-scale air and ground campaign after Hezbollah fired into Israel on March 2 in solidarity with Iran after the US and Israel began their war on Tehran.

Salam, without naming Hezbollah, condemned coordinated attacks carried out with Iran's Revolutionary Guards. More than 1,300 people have been killed in Israeli strikes and about a fifth of Lebanon's population has been displaced. Israel has issued evacuation orders covering around 15% of Lebanese territory.

"I want to direct the biggest salute to our people who are staying in their hometowns and villages in the south, and want to reiterate that we stand by them," Salam said.

Tens of thousands of Lebanese have remained in their homes in southern Lebanon, even as Lebanese troops withdraw from the area to avoid confronting Israeli troops. They include around 9,000 Lebanese Christians living in a cluster of border towns, who told Reuters they were determined to stay despite the advancing military operations.

LEBANESE WANT WARS TO STOP

Salam also stressed the need to preserve internal stability as the war strains Lebanon's sectarian political faultlines. Some communities have been reluctant to host displaced families. As the war drags on, Lebanon is examining ways to house those families in the long-run. Mohammad al-Badran, a Syrian who had lived for years in Beirut's southern suburbs, said he and his family were turned away when they sought refuge in a mountainous area outside the capital.

Badran, his wife and their four children - the youngest of whom was born barely two weeks before the war started - are now sleeping in a makeshift tent area in the capital.

His 10-year-old daughter, Nour, can hear the sound of Israeli strikes on the nearby southern suburbs. "The sound is loud, the children are crying, and I feel like the missiles are flying above us," she said.

Ali al-Aziz, who also fled the southern suburbs, told Reuters that Israel should withdraw from Lebanon so that the conflict could end and he could go back home.

"We want the war to end once and for all. Not for a war to happen every year or every ten years," he said.


Iraqi Oil Ministry Says It Began Exporting Fuel Oil Via Syria

A worker performs checks at Türkiye's Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, February 19, 2014. REUTERS/Umit Bektas
A worker performs checks at Türkiye's Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, February 19, 2014. REUTERS/Umit Bektas
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Iraqi Oil Ministry Says It Began Exporting Fuel Oil Via Syria

A worker performs checks at Türkiye's Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, February 19, 2014. REUTERS/Umit Bektas
A worker performs checks at Türkiye's Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, February 19, 2014. REUTERS/Umit Bektas

Iraq's oil ministry said on Thursday it began exporting fuel oil via Syria after ‌disruptions ‌to the Strait ‌of ⁠Hormuz caused by the ⁠Iran war.

The oil will be trucked overland ⁠and export ‌operations ‌would gradually increase ‌to ‌boost the Iraqi economy, the ministry added.

Reuters reported ‌in an exclusive on Tuesday ⁠that ⁠the land route, which Iraq has not used for decades, became its best option.