Issue No. 67

Libya-Style Split Looms Over Sudan

The military balance in Sudan continued to shift in 2025, with the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) making significant territorial gains against the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Since capturing Wad Maddani on 11 January, the Sudanese army has steadily advanced along the Blue Nile and to the north, east and south in Khartoum. And in late January, for the first time since the war began, the Sudanese army was able to break through to its besieged General Command headquarters. These advances have now allowed SAF to position itself to assert near-full control of the capital in the coming days. The RSF, meanwhile, has preferred to fight only minor rearguard actions, as it transfers fighters, vehicles, and material from central Sudan towards its western heartlands in Darfur. With the RSF's renewed devastating assault on El Fasher in North Darfur ongoing, the 'Libya-style' split of the country appears only a matter of time.

Further consolidating its hold on central Sudan, the SAF secured control of Al-Hasaheisa and Al-Rufaa in Gezira state earlier this week while also relieving its garrison in Al-Aylafun, located 30 kilometres east of the capital. The latter victory proved particularly significant, allowing the SAF to break the RSF siege of the Corps of Engineers base, which had endured sustained paramilitary attacks since October 2023, and bringing them close to reclaiming control of Khartoum—the prize at the country's centre. 

Though SAF continues to assert it is the legitimate sovereign government, its main base of operations has been relegated to the enclave of Port Sudan on the Red Sea. Establishing control of Khartoum is central to its positioning as the recognised government authority and its depiction of the RSF as a rogue paramilitary force. Some have sought to frame these advances as perhaps the 'beginning of the end,' but while SAF's victories represent a significant shift in the war's momentum, they nevertheless follow a familiar pattern of alternating impetus that has characterised the conflict since April 2023. And critically, none of the fundamental drivers of the war, including the rivalrous external Gulf patronage and interests in gold, livestock, oil, and Sudan’s prime agricultural lands, have ceased.

The RSF's initial strategy of using superior mobility to seize territory—including most of Khartoum State, Gezira, and large parts of Darfur—in the first months of the war has proven increasingly difficult to sustain. The SAF, on the other hand, has regained momentum through expanded recruitment, particularly driven by reformed and resurgent Islamist militias, fresh injections of military aid from its foreign allies, and the effective and often indiscriminate use of air power on RSF positions. The October 2024 defection of RSF commander Abu Aqla Keikel-- and the death of his paramilitary successor in a recent airstrike-- further strengthened the army's position in central Sudan, bringing both additional fighters and intelligence through the newly formed 'Sudan Shield Forces.'

Still, while the SAF has seized momentum in central Sudan, the RSF remains entrenched across Darfur. Though the paramilitaries have launched repeated offensives against El Fasher, resulting in brutal humanitarian consequences, the city still contains a mixture of SAF troops and its allied Joint Darfur Force, led by Minni Minnawi and others. This offensive, though, appears to be different, amid another sustained assault that has left hundreds of civilians dead, with the RSF convinced it will take the city in a few days. 

Meanwhile, the efforts by the paramilitaries to consolidate their position in Darfur and their retreats in central Sudan precipitated a rare video address on 31 January by RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo 'Hemedti.' Seated behind a desk in military fatigues, with a camouflage scarf wrapped around his neck, he acknowledged the setbacks in Khartoum and struck a defiant tone, urging his forces to regroup. Hemedti dismissed the SAF's advances, insisting that the army "will not enjoy the General Command for long, nor will they enjoy the Signal Corps," vowing to retake lost ground. 

Simultaneously, these retreats have emboldened the SAF, with army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan explicitly rejecting again any negotiated settlement in favour of the RSF's "eradication." Even as the SAF advances, the rhetoric from senior Islamist and military commanders remains the same-- no inch or quarter will be given to the paramilitaries. Previous negotiations, including the Saudi-US facilitated Jeddah talks, failed in part due to the army's reluctance to negotiate from a weakened position in 2023. Despite the offer by Ankara of mediation between SAF and the UAE, the paramilitaries' key foreign sponsor, there remains little to no progress on engineering broader political, ceasefire, or humanitarian talks. The SAF's current battlefield advantage may further reduce its willingness to engage in dialogue as it attempts to push on, increasing the likelihood of a prolonged conflict rather than a political resolution.

Meanwhile, divisions within the Coordination of Civil Democratic Forces (Taqaddum), the influential civilian opposition bloc, have also deepened. Led by former Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, the coalition is grappling with internal rifts over strategies for challenging military rule and where to position itself. In particular, the schisms surround whether to form a civilian 'government-in-exile' to challenge the Port Sudan military administration and as civilian successors to this destructive period– even though no end is in sight. Others, however, point to concerns that any government declaration could politically fragment the country further. 

These tensions erupted publicly on 30 January when conflicting statements from senior leaders exposed widening fractures. Spokesperson Bakri Al-Jak announced plans to separate proponents of an exile government from opponents, only for deputy head Al-Hadi Idris to swiftly contradict him in a post on the same day, dismissing the statement as unauthorised and accusing factions within Taqaddum of pursuing personal agendas. Taqaddum is a coalition, but it is far from the only political force in the country and would certainly lack the requisite legitimacy if it sought to appoint itself as a genuinely inclusive government. Moreover, the internal discord raises serious questions about the priorities within Taqaddum's leadership and their apparent positioning for power in any post-conflict scenario. It may be only a matter of time before Taqaddum collapses in on itself entirely.

With Khartoum likely to fall to the SAF and El Fasher to the RSF in the coming days, the rough territorial split of the country appears imminent, with the west held by the paramilitaries and much of the centre and east of Sudan controlled by SAF and its allies. Leaving aside Taqaddum's government-in-exile divisions, there have been growing reports that the RSF also plans to establish its own rival administration in Darfur soon. This is the latest element of the 'Libya-style' scenario that has been warned about since the eruption of the conflict in April 2023, the formalisation of two parallel governments in a single country under separate spheres of geostrategic influence. The concretisation of this would be disastrous for the prospects, however dim, of a political settlement in the near future.  

By the Horn Edition Team