PORT SUDAN: Witnesses and a military source reported that on Thursday, airstrikes and artillery shook Khartoum as the army targeted paramilitary strongholds in the capital of Sudan.
According to multiple residents, the army launched its first significant offensive in months to retake areas of the capital held by the opposing paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. The fighting started before dawn.
It occurs on the same day when army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the de facto leader of Sudan, spoke to the UN General Assembly in New York.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed worry to Burhan the night before his speech “about the escalation of the conflict in the Sudan,” according to the UN.
The attack took place during the UN General Assembly speech by the de facto leader of Sudan.
Burhan demanded in his speech that the RSF hinder peace efforts and that the “rebel militia be designated as a terrorist group.”
Referring to the RSF, a military source stated that Sudanese government forces were “waging fierce fighting against the rebel militia inside Khartoum” on the ground.
According to the source, army forces had crossed three crucial Nile bridges that divided the army-held and RSF-controlled portions of the capital.
“Cover politics”
The paramilitaries had essentially driven the army out of Khartoum since the start of the conflict in April 2023 between Burhan’s Sudanese Armed Forces and his former subordinate, RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo.
The army recaptured most of Omdurman, the capital’s twin city across the Nile, as well as a portion of larger Khartoum during its most recent significant attack in February.
Based in Port Sudan on the Red Sea coast, where the army still maintains authority, is the government that supports the army.
Meanwhile, the RSF has swept through the central Sudanese agricultural heartland, seized control of almost the whole western area of Darfur, and advanced into the southeast of the country, which is under army control.
Burhan charged “countries in the region” of giving the RSF “financial support, mercenaries, and political cover” in his UN speech. The army chief did not identify the nations, but his administration has frequently charged the UAE with violating the arms embargo on Darfur by providing weapons to the paramilitaries in neighboring Chad.
The allegations were deemed “credible” by UN experts last year, and officials claim that the US has privately urged the UAE to assist the RSF.
