9 May 2024
For the first time, Sudan’s army took the offensive in El-Obeid, North Kordofan State, on Monday after the largest military battle took place between the army and Rapid Support Forces to date.
For over a year, Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have fought a war of political and economic dominance in the country. The strategic city of El Obeid in North Kordofan State has remained a military prize for both warring parties, and civilians have been caught in the middle of this contested location.
North Kordofan
The army attacked the Rapid Support Forces on two axes simultaneously, one coming from Tandelti town in White Nile State in the south and the other from the “Mount Kordofan” area in the east. From the south, the army managed to advance until the Al-Ghabsha area near the city of Umm Rawaba, where the RSF are mainly stationed. From the east, the army targeted a strategic military base that the RSF had seized earlier. There are conflicting reports about control of this camp, as social media confirmed the army’s victory, but the RSF denies this.
According to a witness, the RSF were able to enter the headquarters of the army’s central reserve forces in El Obeid for the first time since the beginning of the war, but the army sent in additional reinforcements and was able to regain control of it within a few hours.
Up until this week, the army was only defending certain areas, while El Obeid remained under siege by the RSF from multiple directions. According to military expert Amin Ismail Mahjoub, it was imperative for the army to conduct these attacks to open access to key roads. “Opening the western national road will enable the delivery of relief to the Kordofan and Darfur regions and send more military forces to break the RSF grip on El Obeid and El Fasher,” Mahjoub told Ayin. Former Lt.-Col. Omar Arbab told Ayin one of the main intentions of the army attack on El-Obeid was to reopen El-Obeid’s airport so that it could be used for air support for the region. “The sorties from the Wadi Sidna air base in the city of Omdurman to the west of the country are expensive and take a long time to fuel,” the former officer added.
The offensive in North Kordofan follows the army’s movements in Khartoum and Al-Jazeera State, Mahjoub added. “There is coordination between the (army) forces to simultaneously launch these attacks, this strategy will succeed in securing North Kordofan, and open the way to break the siege on the city of El Fasher in the Darfur region,” he added.
In turn, the RSF are desperate to maintain their control over the western road linking El-Obeid and El-Fasher and their partial control over the El-Obeid-Kosti road in order to secure their logistical and military supply lines and cut off the army’s supplies.
South Kordofan
In neighbouring South Kordofan, civilians struggle under deteriorating humanitarian conditions, living under the burden of fighting between three armed groups: the army, RSF, and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement / Army-North (SPLM-N).
Last week, the army and the SPLM-N signed an agreement in the capital of South Sudan, Juba, to deliver humanitarian aid to South Kordofan State, including the areas controlled by the movement in the Nuba Mountains region. However, there are complications in the arrival of humanitarian aid in light of the Rapid Support Forces’ control of the main routes, according to local residents in Kadugli.
Political analyst Ahmed Hamdan believes that the army’s movements in the states of North Kordofan and White Nile come in the context of the agreement signed with the SPLM-N, which may not have stopped at humanitarian affairs, and went beyond technical military aspects. “The army has a large military force in the city of Kadugli, but it cannot move them to open roads and lift the siege of El Obeid because it will lose South Kordofan in this case, in light of the presence of the SPLM-N,” he said. “So there is likely an unedeclared cessation of hostilities to stop fighting with the SPLM-N and allow the army to benefit from its forces in Kadugli and move them north to support their El-Obeid operations.”