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The American weapons maker<\/span> Anduril says its founding purpose is to arm democratic governments to safeguard the Western way of life. The company\u2019s official mission document, titled \u201cRebooting the Arsenal of Democracy,\u201d contains 14 separate references to democracy, two more than the name of the company. Building weapons isn\u2019t simply a matter of national security, the company argues, but a moral imperative to protect the democratic tradition. \u201cThe challenge ahead is gigantic,\u201d the manifesto says, \u201cbut so are the rewards of success: continued peace and prosperity in the democratic world.\u201d<\/p>\n Mentions of democracy are noticeably absent, however, from Anduril\u2019s recent announcement of a new joint venture with a state-run bomb maker from an authoritarian monarchy that is facilitating a genocide.<\/p>\n Anduril is partnering with EDGE Group, a weapons conglomerate controlled by the United Arab Emirates, a nation run entirely by the royal families of its seven emirates that permits virtually none of the activities typically associated with democratic societies. In the UAE, free expression and association are outlawed, and dissident speech is routinely and brutally punished without due process. A 2024 assessment of political rights and civil liberties by Freedom House, a U.S. State Department-backed think tank, gave the UAE a score of 18 out of 100.<\/p>\n The EDGE\u2013Anduril Production Alliance, as it will be known, will focus on autonomous weapons systems, including the production of Anduril\u2019s \u201cOmen\u201d drone. The UAE has agreed to purchase the first 50 Omen drones built through the partnership, according to a press release, \u201cthe first in a series of autonomous systems envisioned under the joint venture.\u201d The Omen drone was described as a \u201cpersonal project<\/a>\u201d of Anduril founder and CEO Palmer Luckey, a longtime Trump ally and fundraiser<\/a>.<\/p>\n EDGE Chair Faisal Al Bannai explained<\/a> in a 2019 interview that EDGE was working to develop weapons systems tailored to defeating low-tech \u201cmilitia-style\u201d militant groups.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The UAE has been eager to sell its weapons around the world, both to generate profit and to exert political influence. This most recently and brutally includes Sudan, where the Emirates supply the Rapid Support Forces, an anti-government militia. Weapons furnished by the UAE have been instrumental in the ongoing civil war, now widely described as having descended into an RSF-perpetrated genocide. In October, video imagery emerged from Sudan showing RSF soldiers indiscriminately slaughtering civilians in Darfur. Reports of rape, torture, and other atrocities at the hands of the RSF are now widespread, and a current \u201clow estimate\u201d of people murdered by the RSF during its recent takeover of the Sudanese city of El Fasher is 60,000, according<\/a> to a recent report by The Guardian. The Trump administration determined<\/a> in January that the RSF\u2019s massacres constituted a genocide, echoing assessments by the Biden administration and human rights observers.<\/p>\n The RSF has been able to rapidly overtake the Sudanese army with the help of weapons from Anduril\u2019s new partner. An April investigation by France 24 found<\/a> EDGE subsidiary International Golden Group funneled tens of thousands of mortar rounds into Sudan for use by the RSF.<\/p>\n Nathaniel Raymonds, who leads the Humanitarian Research Lab at the Yale School of Public Health, told The Intercept mortars were among \u201cthree weapons systems that went into the hands of RSF that changed the course of the war.\u201d<\/p>\n Raymonds, whose office at Yale previously partnered with the State Department to monitor atrocities in the Sudanese civil war, described Anduril\u2019s joint venture as \u201cmind-boggling\u201d given the role Emirati drones and other weapons have played in facilitating the RSF\u2019s genocide. \u201cYou have a DIA and [State Department] assessment that in a just world will trigger Leahy Act and shut this thing down from day one,\u201d Raymonds said, referring to legislation that nominally prohibits <\/a>the provision of assistance to foreign militaries <\/a>that have committed major human rights violations<\/a>.<\/p>\n Neither Anduril nor EDGE Group responded to a request for comment. A November press release from both companies noted \u201cEDGE and Anduril will work closely with U.S. and UAE authorities to ensure full compliance with applicable laws and regulations including trade compliance rules and regulations.\u201d<\/p>\n A 2024 report by Human Rights Watch<\/a> noted the use of drone-delivered thermobaric bombs sold by EDGE. In October, The Guardian reported<\/a> the RSF\u2019s use of armored personnel carriers manufactured by an EDGE subsidiary. In 2024, a United Nations panel of experts deemed the UAE\u2019s backing of the RSF as \u201ccredible,\u201d and this year a bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers issued a statement criticizing<\/a> \u201c[f]oreign backers of the RSF and SAF\u2013including the United Arab Emirates.\u201d The Wall Street Journal reported<\/a> in October that both the State Department\u2019s intelligence office and the Defense Intelligence Agency agreed the UAE was supplying the RSF with a wide array of weapons, vehicles, and ammunition. The UAE has repeatedly denied this support despite ample evidence.<\/p>\n Jean-Baptiste Gallopin, a researcher at Human Rights Watch who has tracked the flow of arms into Sudan, told The Intercept that EDGE Group\u2019s products have exacerbated the horror of the ongoing war. \u201cThe rapid support forces, which we found responsible for crimes against humanity across Sudan, has made widespread use of armored vehicles made by Nimr<\/a>, a subsidiary of Edge Group,\u201d he said. \u201cThe name of Adasi<\/a>, another subsidiary of Edge Group which specializes in drone technology, appeared on crates of Serbian-made 120mm munitions that the RSF has been using and which equip some of their quadcopter attack drones.\u201d Nan Tian, a senior researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, added that the Nimr vehicles are armed with \u201ca gun that is made by KNDS which is a French-German arms maker. KNDS has a military partnership with EDGE Group.\u201d<\/p>\n Raymonds argued that \u201cnot since Operation Cyclone,\u201d the CIA effort to arm the Afghan mujahideen, \u201chas there been a covert action by any nation state to arm a paramilitary proxy group at this scale and sophistication and try to write it off as just a series of happy coincidences.\u201d<\/p>\n EDGE was launched at a 2019 inauguration ceremony overseen by Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, and consists of over 30 subsidiaries spanning bombs, drones, ammunition, and various military and intelligence software systems. EDGE\u2019s chair of the board, Faisal Al Bannai, is a businessman and adviser to the prince.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s very few conflicts in the in the wider region that the UAE haven\u2019t had a hand in, and very often a rather malign hand.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n EDGE isn\u2019t the only Emirati weapons company, but the conglomerate represents the bulk of the country\u2019s arms industry by volume and illustrates the amorality of its export policy, according to Sam Perlo-Freeman, a researcher with the Campaign Against the Arms Trade, which has advocated for an arms embargo against the UAE<\/a>. \u201cAs a state-owned company, they will be used as an agent of Emirati state policy,\u201d he said. \u201cArms supplies to allies and proxies across the Middle East, North, and East Africa has been for quite a while a major facet of Emirati state policy.\u201d This has manifested beyond furnishing arms to the RSF, with the UAE arming militaries in Libya<\/a>, Somalia, and the ongoing genocidal war in Tigray. \u201cThere\u2019s very few conflicts in the in the wider region that the UAE haven\u2019t had a hand in, and very often a rather malign hand.\u201d<\/p>\n Reports of EDGE wares winding up in the hands of armed proxies stretches back over a decade.<\/p>\n A 2013 report<\/a> by the United Nations Security Council found International Golden Group facilitated the import of hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition into Libya in violation of a global arms embargo.<\/p>\n In 2019, a report by Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism found<\/a> UAE-backed combatants in the ongoing Yemeni civil war armed with pistols manufactured by Caracal, an EDGE subsidiary.<\/p>\n As in Sudan, a nominal civil war waged within the Tigray region of Ethiopia was exacerbated by foreign entanglement and a flood of outside weaponry. In 2023, Gerjon\u2019s Aircraft Finds, an aviation analysis Substack, published<\/a> imagery indicating the import of guided bombs manufactured by Al Tariq, another EDGE subsidiary, for use by the Ethiopian Air Force, responsible<\/a> for widespread civilian death during the Tigray war.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n\n