The complex was established in 1993 and inaugurated in 1996 with the aim of establishing advanced military industries to meet defence needs in Sudan and contribute to the transfer and localisation of modern technology and benefit from it in the field of defence. It produces rifles, pistols, launcher cannons and tanks such as
Al Basheer MBT (Type 85M-II),
Al Zubair 1 MBT, and
Al Zubair 2 MBT, as well as
Amir IFV and
Amir 2 IFV'''' armoured vehicles and
self-propelled guns, as well as ammunition of various kinds. Personnel from the
Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps were also reported to be working there. In 2012, it was suggested that the
Israeli Air Force conducted an air strike on the facility. During the
2023 Sudan conflict, the
Rapid Support Forces claimed control of the complex. The factory had been built in 1996. According to
Khartoum State Governor
Abdel Rahman Al-Khidir, the explosion probably happened at the main storage facility. The resulting fire resulted in the death of two people and one person being injured.
Ahmed Bilal Osman, Sudanese culture and information minister, blamed the explosion on an airstrike by four Israeli aircraft. He claimed that unexploded Israeli rockets had been recovered. Analysts had said that Sudan was being used as an arms-smuggling route to the
Gaza Strip, which is governed by the Islamist militant organization
Hamas. According to the
Sunday Times, the Israeli operation "was seen as a dry run for a forthcoming attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities." Analysis by military experts at the
Satellite Sentinel Project suggested that the target may have been a batch of around 40 shipping containers, containing highly volatile cargo.
Reaction to the explosion •
Daffa-Alla Elhag Ali Osman, Sudanese ambassador to the
United Nations, brought the case to the
UN Security Council. Three hundred people chanted outside of a government building "
Death to Israel" and "Remove Israel from the map."
Sudanese civil war During the
Sudanese civil war and the further
Battle of Khartoum the
Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the
Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), on 7 June, a fuel-storage facility located close to an army base and the factory caught fire during heavy fighting. On the same day the RSF claimed control of the complex. On 14 June, the SAF claimed that the RSF had begun using drones, which were believed to have come from the factory. On 17 June, 17 people, including five children, were killed in an SAF air strike on the factory. The airstrike occurred earlier in the day of June 17, before the three-day ceasefire was set to be implemented later that evening. While the initial perpetrator was unknown, doctors' committees in Khartoum later accused SAF of the airstrike. A local medical group called The Emergency Room announced that seventeen people were killed in the airstrike, including five children. This toll was corroborated by the Sudanese Ministry of Health, who also stated eleven others were wounded. Twenty-five houses were also flattened in the attack, which targeted the El Ezba market south of Yarmouk. The RSF alleged the SAF of being behind the airstrike, but this couldn't be verified. The Southern Khartoum Emergency Room, referring to the airstrike as the "Yarmouk massacre," stated that the airstrike targeted RSF militants in the
Yarmouk neighbourhood. Following the airstrike, the three-day ceasefire from renewed negotiations in the
Treaty of Jeddah went into effect. ==See also==