NAIROBI, Kenya (CHATNEWSTV) — Sudanese government forces have advanced across multiple fronts in their year-long war with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), retaking key cities and tightening control over the capital despite a widening RSF drone campaign targeting military and civilian infrastructure.
The Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) “have made incremental progress against the RSF in several areas of Sudan,” the Critical Threats Project (CTP) said Wednesday, pointing to SAF territorial gains in central, northern, and western Sudan since mid-May.
The SAF recaptured al Khawai, a strategic town on the road to western Sudan, after losing it to the RSF earlier this month. The town lies just northeast of al Nahud, a key logistics hub that SAF officials are aiming to secure to mount deeper operations into Darfur. The RSF currently holds most of that region.
“The SAF is setting the conditions to relieve its besieged forces in Darfur,” CTP analysts wrote, noting the SAF’s simultaneous push southward from al Obeid toward Dilling in South Kordofan—a city that has been under RSF siege for nearly two years.
Sudanese forces also reclaimed al Atrun in North Darfur on May 18. The town had served as a major RSF logistics node, with access to smuggling routes through Libya and Chad and an airstrip used for drone launches. Its loss marks a significant disruption in RSF supply lines.
In a separate campaign, the SAF completed its takeover of Khartoum state, capturing the last RSF stronghold in Omdurman on May 19. SAF commander Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan followed the military victory by appointing former UN official Kamil Idris as prime minister and naming two women to the Transitional Sovereignty Council.
The SAF move is widely seen as a bid to boost international legitimacy. “This is part of Burhan’s attempt to regain African Union membership and project a return to civilian rule,” Sudan Tribune reported, citing AU sources who remain skeptical of the SAF’s democratic intentions.
The RSF has responded by intensifying its drone campaign in eastern Sudan, striking Port Sudan—the SAF’s de facto capital—at least nine times since May 4. Drone strikes have targeted fuel depots, military bases, power stations, and airports.
“The RSF is trying to show it can contest SAF control across the country and make SAF-held areas ungovernable,” CTP said.
The escalating drone war is also taking aim at public services. RSF drones hit three power stations in Omdurman on May 14 and bombed a prison in al Obeid four days earlier. Analysts warn that such attacks could hinder the SAF’s ability to govern, particularly in eastern Sudan, where infrastructure remains fragile.
With both sides digging in for a long fight, international observers fear that the conflict, now in its second year, will continue to destabilize Sudan and prolong the humanitarian catastrophe already gripping the region.
