The UAE Achilles' heel| Sudanow Magazine

Prelude:
Khartoum- Sudanow
There is abundant data and reports about the UAE using social media and dark rooms to influence the war situation in the Sudan. It is uses its economic and financial leverage, to not only buy alliances and silence foes, but equally to influence narrative and shape the media landscape to its liking.
But as we are going to see in this report, this same point of strength and leverage, is also the Achilles heel that will bring the statute down.
The recent media revolution and its approach that centers on quick condensed content, be it picture, video, text or audio, has huge impact on the speedy impact and quick outreach: it allows score a point even if the tools used are wrong, ethically . Likewise social and perception impact and public image are no doubt quick when those new media tools are used. The impact is not easy to erase.
This is an approach that is not wholly centered on provision of accurate and facts, it suffices to relate a fraction of the facts to manipulate the situation and ultimately bring down a whole edifice of public relations and public image an entity, be it company, society or even a state, has been building for years.

The case of UAE:
This is more so for entities that have been relying heavily on building a right public image that tolerate no scratch, wholly built on a bright PICTURES of a faultless entity, a polished picture of state respectful for human rights, serving as safe haven for high caliber social class that moves from trouble inundated, challenges soaked communities to a more relaxed, heaven-tailored oasis. The very salient example of this is the UAE.
This is an economically saturated state, that wanted to convert this financial might into an advance entity where people could couple pleasure with business, forget politics and war and social woes, find peace and calm, up to par with any place in the world.
It invested in real estate, Nanotechnology industries, electronics, factories, shipping, ports, gold and minerals, but equally on sports, clubs and on entertainment. These are areas that tolerate no violence or image tarnishing.
To maintain its status quo and to avoid any possible change, any such events from happening, the UAE believes – and showed this via its covert and overt policies- it should go and uproot anything that could spur such a situation. Clandestinely it started working on this behind the scene and slowly gaining ground. But the Arab spring at the beginning of the millennium, turned that into a fury, a quick move and quick action that sought to cut off stages and reach the target with the same pace of the social media and the quick image and intensive bombardment.
- Studies and analysis showing how UAE uses social media and AI
This was coupled with intensive investment on social media and disinformation campaign and AI, to decide the narrative and orient the direction of the story. This was demonstrated by the study carried out in Qatar and published early this year.
It was academic study on how, atrocities are being encouraged in the Middle east and North Africa (MENA) in General and the Sudan in particular through the use of “Sock puppets, Bots and Digital Information” and the end result is “Harm in Wartime”.

To put it simply and away from the academic jargon, this was a study that says another form of support to the foes of the government and people of Sudan, has been going on for years, using fake accounts and disinformation tools.
This time it is not in the form of military assistance or logistical or mercenary support. This support takes the form of trying to undo whatever positive elements coming out of the Sudan, and backing and justifying whatever form of atrocities committed by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militias.
It is an electronic warfare that goes after all accounts operating in X platform, heaping AI produced tweets and commentary in a way that any positive or favorable tweets or comments in favor of the Sudanese army and government in place would be eclipsed.

And it is a serious study> It is produced under the auspices of the UNESCO Chair on Data, Media and Society at the University of South Carolina. It forms part of a research agenda into the role of data-driven media systems in shaping political perception, public knowledge, and information integrity in conflict affected and ‘atrocity risk’ affected contexts.
The report summarizing the study, released end of May 2026, said the subject matter has focused on large-scale coordinated influence operations across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).
“Specifically, this report documents and analyses three large-scale, coordinated sock puppet and bot networks operating across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), with particular emphasis on activity surrounding Sudan’s civil war. “ it stressed.
The study under the name: Enabling Atrocity in the MENA and Sudan: Sock puppets, Bots and Digital Information, Harm in Wartime” was spearheaded by professor Marc Owen Jones, an Associate Professor of Media Analytics at Northwestern University in Qatar.
The summary said this report documents and analyses three large-scale, coordinated sock puppet and bot networks on the X platform (formerly twitter) operating across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), with particular emphasis on Sudan’s civil war, which pits the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) against the government-backed Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF).
“Drawing on the analysis across three distinct networks of more than 250,000 social media posts produced in Arabic, English, Persian, Turkish and French, and covering a period of over two years, the report identifies sustained influence operations involving over 27,000 inauthentic accounts used to promote state-aligned geopolitical narratives to reshape public understanding of the civil war in Sudan.” it argued.
According to the published report this study while surveying MENA-wide activity, including campaigns targeting Iran, Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Yemen, Syria, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, the core empirical focus concerns networks promoting the Rapid Support Forces during the Sudan conflict.
A second study by Thomson Foundation “ Manipulation in Sudan: A Baseline Assessment of actors, narratives and tactics “ has stated that sophisticate actor networks deploy distinct but equally dangerous strategies, where the RSF has built a technically sophisticated disinformation apparatus, using high quality multimedia content, AI-enhanced imagery, professional public relations consultants, with foreign backing which dates back before the conflict began. RSF operations feature individual influencers and anonymous amplification accounts, with slick video production optimized for algorithm engagement across TikTok, Facebook, X, and YouTube. Their narratives center on marginalization of peripheral regions, anti-elite rhetoric, and psychological intimidation including explicit gendered violence threats.

It further indicated under the subtitle “Foreign interference shapes narratives through coordinated regional and international networks” that Geopolitical actors play critical roles in Sudan’s disinformation ecosystem. The UAE is strongly implicated as a major foreign actor supporting RSF through bot operations, professional communications infrastructure, and narrative laundering via Emirati platforms and influencers. Russia is involved in influence operations through Wagner Group links and corporate interests in Sudan’s gold resources.
Israeli channels participate in campaigns alongside Emirati accounts, whilst Egyptian and Yemeni influencers amplify SAF-aligned narratives.
Regional media platforms including Egyptian YouTube channels and UAE-based outlets function as high-reach amplification nodes for faction-aligned narratives packaged as journalism. International platforms inadvertently launder disinformation when reputable figures without verification capacity re-share manipulated content, whilst coordinated networks operate from diverse geographies, demonstrating the globalized architecture of Sudan’s information war.
The information war directly undermines humanitarian response, targets journalists, and perpetuates conflict Disinformation severely hinders humanitarian operations, with aid workers and Emergency Response Rooms systematically accused of being ‘collaborators’ or ‘spies’, leading to arrests, targeted attacks, and operational paralysis.
False accusations force organizations to divert resources from assistance to reputation management. Journalists face systematic targeting from warring parties, accused of collaboration and subjected to arrest, harassment, detention, and killing. The collapse of Sudan’s media infrastructure has created an information vacuum filled by propaganda rather than professional journalism.
Any individual or group calling for peace is systematically attacked and isolated, transforming peace advocacy into a social crime. The primary
goal extends beyond military advantage to the deliberate fragmentation of civil society, destruction of social cohesion, and perpetuation of a conflict serving the political and economic interests of armed actors whilst devastating civilian populations.
Another study published by AL Misbar reported that A large-scale online network linked to the UAE has used stolen images of Somali women and influencers to spread fake content favoring the country and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Sudan. An investigation by a Somali activist called @Deeqa on X published a thread and stated: “Dozens of fake Somali accounts, operated by a UAE-linked bot farm, are quietly infiltrating Somali social media, manipulating minds and steering public opinion without anyone noticing.”
The investigation revealed several fake accounts on X, Facebook, and TikTok — many posing as Somali Muslim women and lifestyle influencers — targeting audiences across Africa, particularly the East African region.
Using a mix of real and AI-generated images, the accounts posted coordinated multilingual content portraying the UAE as a benevolent influence in Somalia while attacking Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.
These three examples show the importance the UAE accords to this type of media and communication tools. The overall objective is to tarnish others while, using the attack is best form of defence, maintaining its picture clean and its image untarnished.
But using the same tools and technique could be fatal for the perpetrators. It is clear that the RSF militias have been strictly instructed to stop using their mobile for bragging about atrocities they committed as they did in Gezira, Khartoum, the white Nile, Sinnar and Kordofan but primarily in Darfur, starting from the lynching and disfiguring of the west Darfur governor khamis, to the massacres of civilians in el Fasher. They videoed evidence that would be, no doubt about it, used to incriminate them. But it is too late; it has already tarnished their image to the marrow.
But as the international pressure increases thanks to the use of conventional media, mainly print media, using foreign languages, it seems it is high time to use more and more of the social media to respond to the UAE campaigns. This is an element that is more effective than hundreds of speeches and statements produced by Sudanese politicians and distributed locally, if and when there is no equivalents in foreign languages.
But nowadays with the use of AI, even this hurdle could be surmounted, though the viewers and public is well aware and savvy of such use, which translates into the provision of capitals to equally use the social media to the UAE and handle issues it would do everything possible to prevent people from doing: the public image of the UAE is the achielie tendon that would bring it on its knees promptly.

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