Sudan’s Army Advances Expose Fractured Alliances, Hinting at Prolonged Conflict After RSF Defeat

Sudan’s armed forces enjoyed a stronger position during the summer months. In the past month, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) reclaimed several towns along the strategic Export Road—locally known as Sadirat—that links the central Nile valley with the western part of the country, pushing the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) into a defensive posture across much of the central region.

Buoyed by these territorial gains, senior SAF commanders have started to speak with greater confidence about the prospect of completely defeating the RSF, rather than merely containing it.

However, the situation looks very different when viewed from Sudan’s Blue Nile state. In mid‑August, the RSF together with its ally, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement‑North (led by Abdulaziz al‑Hilu), recaptured the town of Kurmuk and seized Geisan within days. Sudanese military sources said the attacks were launched from across the border in Ethiopia. Drone strikes on several army‑controlled cities this month demonstrated that the RSF’s operational reach extends well beyond Darfur, its traditional stronghold.

The lesson of the summer is not that the SAF is on the brink of a decisive victory. Rather, military success is becoming increasingly separate from the political resolution needed to end the conflict. Even if the RSF were fully defeated, the war is more likely to splinter into multiple smaller confrontations than to conclude outright.

The dynamics of the warring coalitions help explain why. The anti‑RSF alliance is coordinated and led by the SAF, yet the army also relies on a variety of allied armed groups—most notably Darfuri factions that signed the 2020 Juba Peace Agreement (JPA). Among these are Finance Minister Gibril Ibrahim’s Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) headed by Darfur Governor Minni Minnawi. The JPA mandated that these forces be integrated into Sudan’s formal military and security structures, but many have been reluctant to surrender the autonomous power that underpins their political influence.

In March, Yasser al‑Atta—then assistant commander‑in‑chief and now the army’s chief of staff—announced that the military would activate mechanisms to organize and incorporate allied irregular groups into the regular armed forces. Little progress has been reported since then.

Al‑Atta was not the first to pledge action on the proliferation of armed groups. Two years earlier, deputy commander‑in‑chief Shams al‑Din Kabbashi told a graduation ceremony for SLM fighters that the army had “begun enacting laws and structures to control the many popular resistance groups.” He warned that the array of semi‑autonomous militias, tribal coalitions, and volunteers backing the SAF’s war effort—the so‑called “popular resistance”—would “become the next danger if we continue this way.” More than two years after that speech, the core issue remains largely unresolved.

The RSF’s own coalition is also unraveling. Senior figures such as al‑Nour al‑Qubba, al‑Savanna, and, most recently, the RSF‑appointed governor of Kordofan, Hamad Khalifa, have defected amid reports of Saudi financial incentives and tribal grievances.

When al‑Nour al‑Qubba defected, he took dozens of combat vehicles and a sizable contingent of fighters. Because the RSF functions more as a franchise than a unified military, such defections should be a source of concern for the SAF as much as a cause for celebration. Defectors often bring intact units loyal to their former commanders, rather than soldiers accustomed to a strict chain of command. In effect, each defection transfers the RSF’s structural weakness to the SAF.

Another illustrative case is Abu Aqla Keikel, an SAF‑trained officer who fought for the army after the war’s outbreak in 2023, defected to the RSF later that year, and returned to the SAF in October 2024. His Sudan Shield Forces continue to operate largely under his personal authority rather than under the army’s command, even as he appears beside SAF leaders and Darfuri commanders in recent victory photos.

Many commanders within the anti‑RSF camp retain considerable operational independence, which translates into separate political calculations. These differences will become far more pronounced once the war ends and there is no longer a common enemy to paper over their divergent interests.

Sudanese Islamists occupy a curious position. Brigades such as al‑Baraa ibn Malik, linked to the country’s Islamic Movement that once propped up Omar al‑Bashir’s National Congress Party (NCP), supplied thousands of fighters and played a key role in retaking Khartoum from the RSF. Both the United States and the European Union have imposed sanctions on al‑Baraa ibn Malik and its leader, al‑Misbah Abu Zaid. Amid international pressure and SAF battlefield gains, some Islamist fighters and leaders have begun pulling back, described by a Sudan Tribune report as a “tactical withdrawal.” Al‑Misbah recently posted that “we have returned to our civilian lives.”

Retreating from the battlefield, however, does not equate to withdrawing from politics. Ahmed Haroun, chairman of the former NCP, told Reuters last year that the Islamic Movement could support an extended period of military rule, with the aim of returning to power through “the ballot box,” as he put it.

The war has also given Islamist brigade fighters years of combat experience. There is little reason to expect that those who helped recapture the capital will disarm and disband immediately once hostilities cease, at least without a political settlement that outlines a path to demobilization.

Saf chief and de facto president General Abdel Fattah al‑Burhan’s recent announcement of a national dialogue should be understood in this context—not as a comprehensive solution to the country’s militia problem, but as a political process that could transform wartime military alliances into post‑war influence.

Burhan has explicitly ruled out the return of RSF leaders to power, promising that there would be no “incomplete peace” allowing Hemedti or other RSF commanders back into government. While this exclusion is defensible given the RSF’s egregious human‑rights record during the conflict, the broader challenge of dismantling or integrating the RSF’s remaining forces—particularly in Darfur—and bringing the SAF’s own allied militias under a single command remains unresolved.

Another structural impediment, older than this war, continues to stymie claims of total victory. Historically, the Sudanese army has struggled to maintain sustained authority across the country’s periphery. Under Omar al‑Bashir, the government relied on Janjaweed militias to fight the Darfur rebellion, and many of those fighters were incorporated into the newly created RSF in 2013.

There is little reason to believe that a cash‑strapped SAF, now dependent on volunteer recruits, Islamist militias, and JPA signatory forces, can succeed where the pre‑war state repeatedly failed: in Darfur, a region roughly the size of France, where the RSF still uses cross‑border supply routes.

Even if the RSF were eventually broken, its weapons and fighters would not vanish. They would likely be absorbed by the next political entrepreneur best positioned to exploit them. Meanwhile, in Khartoum, the post‑war future will reopen conflicts that the war has, for now, kept dormant.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

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