UAE cargo plane linked to Sudan war tracked between Israel, Ethiopia bases

A massive cargo plane with ties to the United Arab Emirates has been making a series of flights across the Middle East and Horn of Africa in recent weeks, raising fresh questions about weapons shipments to fighters in Sudan's brutal war. The aircraft, an Antonov An-124 operated by the UAE-based airline Maximus Air and bearing the tail number UR-ZYD, touched down repeatedly at Ethiopian military airbases in early January before continuing onward to Israel, Bahrain, France, Kazakhstan, China, and Thailand. The pattern of movement, tracked through public flight data, comes as the UAE and Saudi Arabia wage an intensifying proxy struggle across Yemen and the Horn of Africa—a competition that has now engulfed Sudan's conflict and raised the stakes for the entire region.

The war in Sudan, which erupted in April 2023 between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, has become a battleground for Gulf rivalries. Saudi Arabia, alongside Egypt and Turkey, has been pouring military support into the government forces, while the UAE has long backed the RSF. That support has created the world's largest humanitarian crisis, with the RSF facing widespread accusations of genocide in Darfur. The recent flights suggest the UAE is doubling down on its commitment to the RSF even as its regional position weakens. Saudi military action last year forced the UAE to abandon its key base in the Somali port city of Bosaso and withdraw from Aden in Yemen. Israel's recognition of Somaliland, where the UAE maintains another military installation and controls the port of Berbera, has further scrambled the regional order. Ethiopia, closely aligned with Abu Dhabi, has become crucial to Emirati strategy, with UAE personnel redeployed there as other bases became untenable.

A former Ethiopian government adviser with over a decade of experience in Addis Ababa told Middle East Eye that Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali appears determined to align Ethiopia firmly with the UAE. The source suggested that the UAE has effectively been directing Ethiopian policy on Sudan, the RSF, and even the Eritrean port of Assab—claiming that Abiy nearly invaded Assab last year at Abu Dhabi's urging. Jalel Harchaoui, an analyst of North African politics, argued that while Saudi Arabia's recent victories in Yemen have bolstered Riyadh's regional standing, Ethiopia will not abandon the UAE. "Addis Ababa will stick with the UAE," Harchaoui said. "The Emiratis are therefore focusing military operations on Ethiopian territory, preparing a major offensive as Saudi actions have disrupted other staging areas."

The flight data reveals a specific pattern. On January 3rd, UR-ZYD departed Abu Dhabi International Airport and landed at Harar Meda, the main Ethiopian Air Force base, at 9:12 a.m. local time. It remained on the ground for roughly ninety minutes before returning to Abu Dhabi. The plane repeated this journey on January 12th, this time departing from Al Dhafrar, a UAE military base, and again on January 15th. On January 17th, it flew to Harar Meda before continuing to Addis Ababa's Bole International Airport. From there, the aircraft's path became more circuitous: Marseille on January 18th, then Taraz Airport in Kazakhstan the same day, followed by Guangzhou in China and finally U-Tapao International Airport in Thailand. Days before these Ethiopia flights, the plane had made three round trips between Bahrain's Sheikh Isa Air Base and Israel's Ovda base in the southern Negev desert on December 28th, 29th, and 31st.

The Antonov An-124 is the world's largest military transport aircraft. Maximus Air's marketing materials boast that it can carry twenty-one Toyota Land Cruisers or four Mi-17 helicopters without strain. Nathaniel Raymond, executive director of Yale's Humanitarian Research Lab, which monitors Sudan's conflict, called the repeated sorties between Abu Dhabi and the Ethiopian airfield near areas of increased RSF activity "of global concern." He urged Ethiopia to block UAE access to its airspace if the flights are confirmed to involve RSF weapons supplies. A Sudanese intelligence source told Middle East Eye that the RSF has recently purchased at least six fighter jets—Sukhoi Su-24s and MiG-25s typically sourced from Serbia—which are dismantled and transported via cargo planes to either Ethiopia or al-Kufra, an airbase in eastern Libya controlled by General Khalifa Haftar's forces.

The aircraft itself carries a documented history of sanctions-busting. A 2021 UN panel of experts investigating Emirati weapons shipments to Haftar identified UR-ZYD as part of a covert "airbridge" operation, pointing to twelve suspicious flights between Assab in Eritrea and Mersa Matruh in Egypt. The panel estimated that each flight delivered up to eighteen military vehicles and identified Mohammed bin Zayed, now the UAE president and then-crown prince, as the plane's beneficial owner. The UAE's then-ambassador to the United Nations, Lana Nusseibeh, dismissed the allegations as "false" and denied them "in their entirety." Maximus Air, which describes itself as the largest all-cargo airline in the UAE and is majority owned by an investment fund chaired by UAE national security advisor Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, did not respond to requests for comment.

The plane's connections to weapons transfers extend beyond Libya. Open-source plane monitors identified UR-ZYD making sixteen flights over five months between Abu Dhabi and N'Djamena in Chad in 2023, allegedly part of UAE weapons supplies to the RSF. The same aircraft was previously linked to Emirati arms shipments to Ethiopia during the 2021 Tigray war. Yet Maximus Air's annual reports for 2022 and 2023 emphasize the airline's "humanitarian mission," highlighting cooperation with the UAE Red Crescent Authority and citing the transport of two Mi-17 helicopters from China to Uganda in 2023 for UN peacekeeping operations in the Abyei region between Sudan and South Sudan. Last month, UR-ZYD was part of an aircraft entourage accompanying UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed on an official visit to Pakistan. Meanwhile, al-Kufra airbase in Libya, a key supply point for the RSF and a hub for UAE-linked cargo flights, announced a "temporary closure" on Monday for "runway repairs" expected to last a month—despite the runway having been renovated just eleven months earlier in February 2024. The closure is widely believed to give the Haftar family time to navigate pressure from Saudi Arabia to abandon their support for the UAE's RSF operations. Kholood Khair, a Sudanese analyst and policy expert, summed up the stakes: "The Horn of Africa is now at the mercy of what happens in Riyadh and Abu Dhabi."