“Everywhere I go in Africa, everyone talks to me about drones,” boasted Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan during his last tour of the continent in late 2021. Since then, the three countries he visited – Togo, Angola and Nigeria – have joined the less and less exclusive club of states that have equipped themselves with Turkish Aksungur and Bayraktar TB2 combat aircraft. The latter, with a 12-meter wingspan and a flight time of 27 hours within a 150-kilometer radius, carries 4 laser-guided missiles. In just a few years, it has become the showcase of the Turkish defense industry abroad. And it is now spearheading that industry in Africa.
Like China and Israel, its two main competitors in the African combat drone market, Turkey is benefiting from the growing appetite of the continent’s militaries for UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles). Since 2019, Ankara is said to have sold more than 40 – figures are not public – to around 10 countries on the continent. Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali acquired several Bayraktar TB2 models in the space of 10 months. In 2022, Senegal announced that it was also in the fray for one. The Chadian army has acquired four Anka attack drones from another Turkish manufacturer.
“Turkey uses the sale of its drones as a gateway to Africa. It is not looking for an immediate return on investment but sees it as part of a very long-term political project,” said Aurélien Denizeau, a researcher specializing in Turkey at the Institut libre des relations internationales et des sciences politiques (ILERI, Free Institute of International Relations and Political Science). UAV exports serve broader diplomatic objectives and open economic and political partnerships, including soft power. In Ethiopia, for example, the informal delivery of Bayraktar TB2s to Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government in 2021 was accompanied by the closure of a dozen schools affiliated to Hizmet, the movement of the preacher Fethullah Gülen, Ankara’s bête noire.
A modest customer
In Africa, however, Ankara faces competition from Beijing. China markets its Wing Loong and CH4 armed UAVs, which are equivalent in capacity and cost to the Turkish models, in some 10 African countries. In particular, they are now active in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. A major consumer of Chinese drones, the United Arab Emirates is discreetly exporting them to the continent to support allied forces, as was the case in Libya and Ethiopia.
Iran has also sold a number of UAVs to Ethiopia during the Tigray war and to General Abdel al-Burhan in the current conflict in Sudan. Finally, Israel – although a discreet player on the continent – exports a large number of surveillance aircraft, notably to help its Moroccan ally in its operations against the Polisario Front in Western Sahara.
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