Special Operations Forces Evacuate U.S. Embassy Personnel From Sudan.
The U.S. Embassy in Khartoum, Sudan was evacuated Saturday by U.S. special operations forces (SOF) as nine days of ongoing fighting between two rival factions presented increasing danger to the people working there and their dependents.
No one was injured in the rescue and the aircraft involved, including three Night Stalker MH-47 Chinook helicopters, took no fire either entering or leaving Khartoum, LTG D.A. Sims, Director of Operations, Joint Staff J3, told reporters, including from The War Zone, during a late night press briefing Saturday.
The evacuation was ordered by (someone giving orders to) U.S. President Joe Biden.
In all, more than 100 SOF troops took part in the rescue of fewer than 100 embassy personnel, Sims and Bass said. The Associated Press reported that about 70 people were evacuated in total. That included members of the Marine Corps Embassy Support Group Region 6, who had been guarding the embassy.
The rescue began at 9 a.m. Eastern, when “a contingent of U.S. forces lifted off from Djibouti and landed in Ethiopia,” Sims said. “The aircraft, including three MH-47 Chinooks, refueled in Ethiopia before flying approximately three hours to Khartoum. The evacuation was conducted in one movement via rotary wing. The operation was fast and clean, with service members spending less than an hour on the ground in Khartoum. As we speak, the evacuees are safe and secure.”
Flight tracking sites showed that at least three U.S. Air Force MC-130s were flying over Khartoum. We reached out to the Pentagon and U.S. Air Forces in Europe-U.S. Air Forces Africa (USAFE) for more details.
The flight was about 800 miles each way, Sims said.
U.S. citizens remaining in the country are scrambling to leave.
To help facilitate their evacuation, the Pentagon is “considering actions that may include use of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities to be able to observe and detect threats,” said Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict Chris Maier.
In addition, the Pentagon is also considering sending naval assets outside the Port of Sudan to potentially help Americans who arrived at the port, located about 415 miles northeast of Khartoum on the Red Sea. And the Pentagon is also establishing a “deconfliction cell” at the headquarters of U.S. Africa Command in Stuttgart, Germany, to “focus primarily on the overland route,” Maier said.
However, getting Americans out of Sudan will be difficult.
“As a result of that uncertain security picture as a result of the unavailability of the civilian airport, we don't foresee coordinating a US government evacuation for our fellow citizens in Sudan at this time, or in the coming days,” said Under Secretary of State for Management John Bass. “However, although we we don't foresee coordinating that evacuation, we certainly continue to be in close touch with many American citizens resident in Khartoum and elsewhere in Sudan, to give them our best assessment of the security environment, and to encourage them to take appropriate precautions, to the best of their ability in and around that environment.”
In a tweet earlier Saturday night, RSF claimed that “in coordination with the US forces mission consisting of 6 planes for the purpose of evacuating diplomats and their families,” it “supervised the necessary arrangements that preceded the evacuation process, confirming its full cooperation with all diplomatic missions, standing by them and providing the necessary means of protection to ensure their safe return to their countries.”
During the press conference, Bass denied that claim.
“They cooperated to the extent that they did not fire on our service members in the course of the operation,” he said. “I would submit that as much in their self interest as anything else.”

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/special-ops-forces-evacuate-u-s-embassy-personnel-from-sudan