Sudan’s army has launched a major offensive in the capital, Khartoum, to regain ground held by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), military sources have told Al Jazeera.
The army carried out air strikes on Thursday against RSF positions in the capital and north of Khartoum in its biggest such assault in months.
Reporting from Khartoum, Al Jazeera’s Hiba Morgan said the army has taken control of three main bridges, including two that connect the city of Omdurman with the capital.
Its forces have “been advancing towards … the presidential palace where there has also been heavy fighting reported”, said Morgan.
Though the army retook some ground in Omdurman early this year, it depends mostly on artillery and air strikes and has been unable to dislodge more effective RSF ground forces embedded in Khartoum.
Military sources said the assault was “in the works for months”, said Morgan, against the din of artillery and fighter jets overhead.
Sudan plunged into conflict in April 2023, when long-simmering tensions between army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo broke out in a conflict that has so far displaced more than 10 million people, a fifth of Sudan’s population, both within the country and across borders.
“You can hear the heavy artillery now still ongoing, so it looks like the army is still fighting the RSF in several positions,” Morgan reported.
The bloody civil war has caused a dire humanitarian crisis, however diplomatic efforts by the United States and other countries have faltered, with the army refusing to attend talks last month in Switzerland.
The army was trying to “drain the capacities and the capabilities” of the RSF, so their presence in the capital could be “minimised”, Morgan said.
“Sources say this is the right time, with the RSF busy on other fronts in North Darfur, as well as in the south and central parts of the country,” she added.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres voiced concern on Wednesday over an “escalation” in the conflict when he met al-Burhan on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.
Guterres “expressed deep concern about the escalation of the conflict in the Sudan, which continues to have a devastating impact on the Sudanese civilians and risks a regional spillover”, according to a UN readout of the meeting.
The push by the army, which lost control of most of the capital at the start of the conflict, came ahead of a scheduled address by al-Burhan to the UN meeting.
A UN-backed assessment has warned of the risk of widespread famine in Sudan on a scale not seen anywhere in the world in decades.
