Specter of prolonged conflict haunts Sudan as warring generals dig in
In an excerpt from this week's Security Briefing newsletter, Pentagon correspondent Jared Szuba looks at the deteriorating situation in Sudan, as the conflict between the Rapid Support Forces militia and the Sudanese Armed Forces shows no signs of slowing.
Four years after they joined hands to overthrow the decades-long rule of former dictator Omar al-Bashir, one of Sudan’s top military generals turned against the other in a violent power-grab that has brought the country’s hard-fought transition to democracy to its knees.
The Rapid Support Forces militia loyal to Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, better known as “Hemedti,” launched an assault on the larger and better-equipped Sudanese Armed Forces under the command of his main rival and de facto head-of-state Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan on Saturday.
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The attempted coup d’etat – Sudan’s third since 2019 – came as the rival generals had been in talks to unite Sudan’s various military factions before future elections to restore civilian governance.
