Sudanese and US Sources Say Israeli Intelligence Behind Dossier on Army's Alleged Chlorine Bombs

The dossier surfaced first in the New York Times and Washington Post: nearly 150 documents, bomb blueprints, images, videos, voice notes, and thousands of text messages allegedly pulled from the phones of senior Sudanese army officers. Both outlets described the source only as "a Middle Eastern intelligence agency."

Multiple Sudanese and US sources have told Middle East Eye that agency is Israeli, and that the material closely resembles a dossier Israel gave the US government before Washington sanctioned Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan in January 2025. Middle East Eye says it contacted the Israeli government and foreign office for comment on the record and received no response.

The documents describe a secretive SAF unit that allegedly built and tested chlorine bombs over roughly six months in 2024, as the army lost ground to the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Khartoum. An intercepted message attributed to General Tariq Hussain, described in the dossier as head of the project, reportedly said the "deadly gas could be weaponised to gain an edge in the battle for Khartoum." Prototype assembly allegedly began in July 2024, using chlorine cylinders imported from Egypt and, according to the Washington Post, household barbecue-style canisters and liquefied gas tanks.

On 13 September 2024, the RSF publicly accused the army of firing "toxic" missiles at the al-Jaili oil refinery. In the dossier, Hussain is quoted describing RSF fighters who "drank the gas" after the strike. There were no confirmed deaths from the incident, and MEE reports the dossier contains no medical evidence or victim testimony, and no other confirmed instance of SAF chlorine use.

What has drawn attention inside Sudan is not the chemistry but the surveillance. The scale of intercepted material, phone contents, voice notes, private text threads among senior officers, led a former US official familiar with the conversations to call the operation "an advertisement for Pegasus," the phone-hacking software built by Israeli firm NSO Group.

"I knew Mossad had interests in Sudan… but the level and depth and length of surveillance suggests that Israel is more involved in Sudan than we think," a Sudanese security analyst, who asked not to be named, told Middle East Eye.

The surveillance claim sits inside a wider, documented pattern. The RSF and its leader, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, have been backed by the United Arab Emirates, Israel's closest regional partner, since Sudan's civil war began in April 2023 following a split between Hemedti and Burhan, the two men who jointly staged Sudan's 2021 coup.

Sudan's army-backed government has denied the chemical weapons allegations. The identification of Israel as the dossier's source rests on unnamed Sudanese and US sources rather than an on-record admission, and remains an allegation. What is documented is the dossier's existence, its role in the January 2025 US sanctions on Burhan, and the underlying reporting by the New York Times and Washington Post.