Sudan’s warring generals closely matched ahead of latest cease-fire
The RSF’s advantage, however, lies in its battle experience and maneuverability. It is better suited to urban warfare and its units have been setting up bases in homes in residential neighborhoods in the capital, lessening the military’s advantages in heavy weaponry like tanks and fighter jets.
The two groups have artillery, mortars, antiaircraft guns and antitank missiles, which have been freely deployed in some neighborhoods causing widespread destruction.
“Both sides have their own reasons for confidence which is one reason we haven’t gotten to peace talks,” said Alan Boswell, Horn of Africa director for the International Crisis Group. “Both sides are trying to get reinforcements into Khartoum — it’s a complete dogfight — most people would say SAF has the upper hand but if the RSF entrench themselves in Khartoum then does it really matter?”
Janes, which publishes defense and security analyses, estimates that the army has 134,000 members — including the air force and navy — while the RSF has around 100,000, although that is a “patchwork” of groups that doesn’t have comparable command and control, said Dylan Lee Lehrke, head of open source intelligence analysis.
The military could also make alliances with other armed militias, boosting its forces to 200,000 fighters, he said, though force cohesion might suffer.
The military is much more heavily armed, with heavy armored vehicles and hundreds of tanks, he said, although it was unclear how good maintenance was. They also have significant artillery forces, including multiple launch rocket systems.
The RSF had some armored vehicles but doesn’t seem to be using them much, he said, and has shoulder-mounted antiaircraft missiles that could take down helicopters the army might try to use for close air support.
On Tuesday, South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir announced a seven-day cease-fire due to begin on Thursday. His acting foreign minister, Deng Dau Deng, told The Washington Post that the two sides had agreed not to move from their positions, send reinforcements or bomb each other for that week.
Kiir had asked for both sides to name trusted envoys who could negotiate about the date, venue and outline for potential talks, Deng added.
Several previous cease-fires, including one announced by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, have all failed to end the fighting, although some areas would witness a reduction in violence allowing people to leave the city. On Wednesday, residents reported repeated airstrikes around the presidential palace and an industrial area in Bahri, north of Khartoum.
Both those positions are under control of the RSF, which is headed by Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo — universally known as Hemedti. His forces are battling the military, headed by Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, army chief and de facto head of state.
The RSF holds most of Bahri, the city that bleeds into northern Khartoum’s suburbs, and several residential areas within Khartoum, residents said. It also controls the television and radio stations in Omdurman, the city on the other side of the Nile river from Khartoum. The army retains control of the military headquarters and air force headquarters. Early RSF attacks on airfields damaged and crippled some planes, but the military still has dozens of helicopters and planes, including Soviet-era MiG fighter jets.
Many residents of the capital are trapped without water, food or transport, said Maysoon Abdallah, coordinator for a civilian committee in the northern Bahri area that has been trying to help families trapped by the fighting. Residents are also menaced by a new danger, she said: gangs with no affiliation to either side are carrying out carjackings and robbing families trying to flee the fighting. Thousands of prisoners were released in the early days of the fighting.
Control of the nation’s oil export infrastructure and weapons manufacturing factories is also split: the military controls the oil export terminal in Port Sudan — one of the main exit points for civilians fleeing Sudan — but the RSF controls the main refinery along the pipeline, said resident Ahmed Ali, who lives in the Al-Jili area north of the capital. The RSF had around 400 combat vehicles around the refinery, he said, and had also seized a hospital that belonged to it.
The pipeline carries oil from South Sudan, a fragile nation that gained its independence from in 2011 and whose government would immediately collapse without the oil revenue from export. The need to secure South Sudan’s revenue, and the status of Sudan as a guarantor of South Sudan’s peace deal, gives its leader Kiir an extra impetus to try to end the fighting.
Control of military manufacturing sites is also split. A source working in the Military Industrial Corporation said the RSF now controls the Jiyad complex located in the state of Al-Jazira, east of the capital, which manufactures tanks and heavy machinery. That factory is currently unusable and the RSF could not operate the machinery in any case, he said. The RSF also controls the Qari complex in Bahri, which is functional and makes light weapons and ammunition.
But the army controls the Yarmouk factory, which makes weapons and ammunition and is currently functional, as well as another, both in the south of Khartoum, the source said.
Outside of the capital, the city of El-Obeid, the capital of North Kordofan region, is a trade hub and site of an airport that has also seen major street fighting. Resident Ali Bashir said the city was under the control of the army, including the airport. But RSF was infiltrating from the west and looting gas stations to refuel their vehicles.
Some of the fiercest fighting has taken place in the western region of Darfur, Hemedti’s home region and the place where his RSF grew from a militia that locals called Janjaweed — “devils on horseback” — for the they abuses committed during a nearly two-decade long conflict there that killed an estimated 300,000 people.
But despite initial fighting that saw markets and aid agencies attacked and looted, locals negotiated a fragile cease-fire in two of Darfur’s three main towns after a nearly week of fighting.
Muhammad Suleiman, a resident of El-Fashir in northern Darfur, said the city was currently split. RSF controlled the east, including the main road leading to Khartoum and had set up a prison and many checkpoints. The army holds the west of the city, which includes the main markets, army headquarters, the RSF’s old headquarters, the airport, and government offices, he said.
Muhammad Hamed from Nyala in South Darfur said the city there was also split evenly: RSF had the police and intelligence headquarters, the airport, and the eastern half. The army controls the western half, which includes its headquarters, the seat of government and the main markets. Police patrol the thin line in between.
The city of El-Geneina is more complicated due to the intervention of armed groups that are neither military nor RSF. The east of city, which includes the RSF’s headquarters, is being patrolled by former rebel forces that had signed the 2020 Darfur Peace Agreement, said one resident. Those forces had previously fought the Janjaweed, the military and the RSF. The city was currently ringed by Janjaweed, he added.
In the rest of the city, there was still some looting by militias, but it had died down because the market had already been picked clean and many shops burned. The RSF had positions around the governor’s house, he said, but the airport was under military control.
