The strange coincidences surrounding the scoops on chemical weapons in Sudan

According to two journalistic investigations published last Saturday in the New York Times and the Washington Post, the Sudanese Armed Forces are alleged to have built up an arsenal of chemical weapons, testing them for six months in 2024. The arsenal is said to have been developed using supplies of chlorine initially delivered for water purification but subsequently used for military purposes, in breach of international conventions. The investigations are separate, but by a strange coincidence they were published on the same day, 5 September. By another strange coincidence, the source of the photos, videos and documents made available to American journalists is, by the two publications’ own admission, the same: ‘a Middle Eastern intelligence service’, which, according to observers, can point to only two possibilities: the United Arab Emirates or Israel. In what is likely just another coincidence, the two investigations come three days before Thursday’s decisive vote, when the United Nations Security Council will be called upon to vote on a controversial American proposal extending the arms embargo to the whole of Sudan – and therefore also to the Khartoum Armed Forces – and not just to Darfur. Furthermore, at the end of September, the chairman of the Sudanese Transitional Council, Abdel Fattah Abdelrahman Burhan, now accused of testing chemical weapons, is due in New York to address the 81st United Nations General Assembly, with a speech that would have constituted a formal indictment of the United Arab Emirates, the main backers of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) rebels, whom the UN deems responsible for genocide in North Darfur. Finally, in the latest of these coincidences, these exclusive reports follow just a couple of days after leaks from the report by the UN Panel of Experts on Sudan – an impartial team – which levelled serious allegations against the United Arab Emirates, backed by documented evidence of embargo violations to support the RSF.

The scoops come from renowned journalists – including Pulitzer Prize winners Declan Walsh and Ronen Bergman – but there has been considerable criticism of the quality of the published material, some of it factual. Among these is a photograph showing chlorine bombs lined up in a warehouse with a building in the background. This is a distinctive building known as a barjeel, a wind tower, with a readily recognisable architectural style designed to facilitate better ventilation of interior spaces. This detail is significant because, as the investigations’ critics argue, barjeels are structures typical of the Gulf states and do not exist in Sudan. One of the countries where these wind towers are most common is, in fact, the United Arab Emirates.

Cameron Hudson, an analyst and former White House special envoy to Sudan, noted on X another anomaly regarding the alleged responsibility of the Khartoum forces: the fact that, to date, there is no evidence that anyone has been killed in chemical attacks in Sudan. The suggestion that these unconventional weapons “were used against the RSF, yet the RSF have never claimed any casualties” caused by chlorine bombs “requires further investigation. Refusing to allow UN inspectors entry fuels further speculation about guilt”. In essence, both journalistic scoops have numerous flaws, but dismissing them as unreliable without first sending an independent investigation team could prove counterproductive for Burhan, whose reputation has been severely tarnished just two weeks after his speech in New York.

The allegations come at a time when the RSF’s advance is facing difficulties, which Dagalo is attempting to resolve by acting on two fronts. The first leads to Israel, because according to the latest revelations from Africa Intelligence, the RSF leader and some of his associates travelled to Tel Aviv twice between May 2025 and February 2026 to agree on a ‘supply of Israeli military and surveillance technology’. Then there are the Emirates, which, as well as sustaining the airlift to support the RSF via Libya, Chad and Ethiopia, have also taken action through unconventional channels to counter the United Nations’ diplomatic offensive. First, they lobbied in New York to try to water down and delay the publication of the UN Panel of Experts’ report. Then, once the leaks had emerged, they issued a statement reiterating that they are not involved in the war in Sudan. In the midst of all this lies the world’s largest humanitarian crisis: 14 million displaced people, 25 million at risk of famine and an unknown number of deaths, estimated to be in the hundreds of thousands.