The Sudan war explained: Siege, drones, and regional power struggles

This week on Conflict of Interests, Professor Clionadh Raleigh and Bron Mills are joined by ACLED's Sudan expert, Nohad Khaddaj, to examine why Sudan's war remains deadlocked despite mounting diplomatic pressure.

They break down the siege of Al Obeid, the military stalemate between the SAF and RSF, and how drones, foreign backing, and regional rivalries are reshaping the battlefield. The conversation explores the roles of the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and the United States, and asks why geopolitics continues to outweigh humanitarian concerns.

The episode also turns to Iran, where the funeral of the country's supreme leader drew vast crowds and raised fresh questions about the future of the regime, domestic support, and what comes next after the war.

From Tehran to Khartoum, this episode unpacks the power politics driving today's conflicts—and why understanding them means looking far beyond the battlefield.

For more conversations like this, subscribe to Conflicts of Interest and watch the full episode on YouTube. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

The Economist this morning has gone with the headline More impending horrors in Sudan.

SPEAKER_00 0:05

This siege already has a very catastrophic impact, even if our assessment is that the RSF will not be able to fully capture the city in the long run. Conflicts of interest brought to you by ACLED.

SPEAKER_02 0:25

Welcome everybody to another episode of Conflict of Interest. My name is Cleaner Raleigh, and I'm here with the lovely Bron and the lovely Nohat. Today we're going to talk a little bit about Sudan and what we're seeing develop within the horn. But first, I believe Bron wants to give us a roundup, and it's not of the football scores, which are very exciting, Bronn.

SPEAKER_01 0:45

No, I know, and I think there's lots of tired people across the UK this morning, isn't there? But well worth it by all accounts. And I think doing what we do, there is never a shortage of things to talk about. So China has tested a long-range missile in the South Pacific just hours after Australia and Fiji signed a new defence agreement. And unsurprisingly, that has raised a few eyebrows across the region. Then in Ukraine, Kyiv is hoping to turn its battlefield experience into diplomatic leverage with plans to sign drone deals with seven NATO countries by the end of the year. But that comes as Russia launched another major missile and drone attack on Kyiv ahead of the NATO summit this week, killing civilians and once again putting Ukraine's air defences under the spotlight. Then in the United States, the Atlantic has republished J.D. Vance's anti-Trump essay from a decade ago. And at the same time, new ACLED analysis points to a resurgence in anti-LGBTQ mobilisation by extremist groups who have used Pride Month to do so, alongside the growing influence of incel-related grievances in the country's evolving political violence landscape. So before we get into Sudan, I did want to start with Iran this morning. As today millions have taken to the streets of Tehran for the funeral of Iran's late Supreme Leader. It's a really symbolic moment, isn't it? But looking kind of beyond those pictures, what does it actually tell us about where Iran is now? And has the war and the succession process left the regime more vulnerable or has it actually helped consolidate that support at home?

SPEAKER_02 2:24

The funeral of the Supreme Leader, and then of course the acknowledgement of the many others that were lost over the early days of the war. I don't know what to tell you. There's a lot of death to America. It was a lot of like the best hits, you know? The crowd wants the classics. They don't want any new stuff when you go to a concert and that's what they provided. Some people said it was like a good sign of a a good sign as in a a reliable sign that there's going to be a break with the US. And I just think, no. I mean, you don't go to a state funeral to hear reasonable discussions about diplomacy. You go to hear Death to America etc. So I wouldn't worry about it.

SPEAKER_01 3:09

It's it's really kind of taken over, and I think perhaps that's what's caught the news attention quite so much. So what do you think the mood is?

SPEAKER_02 3:17

I think that those people are often forced to be out there. There's there's listen, there's still a good proportion, not a majority by any means, but there's a good proportion of the Iranian population that supports this administration, supported the last one, would support even stronger actions against the US, Israel, etc. They're gonna come out in style, right? And then of course, like all autocratic regimes, they get people on the street in order to promote this idea that they have overwhelming support, which they often don't, which is what you get when you have to force people on the street. And the pictures look to me, if you might remember, um a military commander died many years ago. There during the first Trump administration, he killed Sulaimani, the Iranian commander that was killed in Iraq with a missile when he was going to talk to the Iraqi-based Iranian supported militias. His funeral was big. You know, he was a very, very important leader within Iran. And I would imagine that, you know, you get very similar kind of public expressions of grief.

SPEAKER_01 4:20

Do you think the war has ramped up any kind of support at home in Iran? Or what what do you think this is trying to show?

SPEAKER_02 4:26

I think that's very difficult to say, in that, like, it's created massive needs in the sense of we were hearing before about not just currency but food, and effectively just a complete absence of public goods and communication breakdowns and all the rest of it. So I do not think that any reasonable person would think this crowd can definitely run this place. But what you often find in those situations is that the priority is figuring out whether or not they're going to be bombed, not whether or not they support the regime in place. And it soon will turn to who's left here to govern the place, and they will find that it's a bunch of extremists for the most part. Or it's the glue that's holding that government together is extremism rather than a practical approach to governing that region. You know, just this morning there was some announcement that the Almani front, which we discussed last week, kind of the southern front, for the exit out of and entry into the Strait of Hormuz has been stopped. Iran has stopped it. And so they're up to some pretty dodgy dealings there, and it's not with the safety of Iranians in mind. I can't imagine that that's the conversation at the moment. Like, will this crowd be able to run Iran? That's that's not what's happening domestically.

SPEAKER_01 5:39

And do you think we'll hear from anybody of significance about what that the next phase of the regime leadership looks like?

SPEAKER_02 5:47

I would say no. In part because I think it's still pretty touch and go whether or not this conflict is over, or at what point will the Trump administration say enough is enough, or how much longer will they have before something happens that creates another opportunity for escalation? But what do you think, Nowhad?

SPEAKER_00 6:06

I don't know, to be honest. I feel like the situation has been ups and downs on and off for a while, to the point that people don't know which signs to look at or which indicators to even consider, because it it could be anything really. I mean it's not an answer, but I think that's uh my point of view at least as someone that doesn't know much about what's going on there.

SPEAKER_02 6:28

I do think that's accurate though, in that no one does, right? It's not as if like it's not as if there is some truth out there and then we're we're all kind of trying to guess how close we are to it. I think that the people directly involved and the people indirectly involved and the people viewing it all have the same level of we actually don't know what events are going to change the dynamics here.

SPEAKER_01 6:52

And then as far as as what ACLED does goes, it's like the global repercussions, right? And so no matter which region you work in and what it is you're you're looking at, there's some kind of knock-on effect that we we continue to see.

SPEAKER_02 7:06

There is, and and in fact the Iranians were pretty clear over the weekend that they have a Red Sea strategy as well as a straight up hormu strategy, which uh which lends itself nicely to what we plan on talking about today.

SPEAKER_01 7:20

Well, yeah, so in amongst the the pictures of the millions on the streets in in Tehran, there are a couple of headlines about Sudan today. And we've touched on before, haven't we, that actually the attention deficit maybe around Sudan is likely because of the complexity and how fast moving it can be. Um but the Economist this morning has gone with the headline more impending horrors in Sudan. And that's where they've they've left it. So what is it that they're referring to there? What's the what's the latest?

SPEAKER_00 7:53

So I think this probably refers to the ongoing siege by the RSF on Alubayid, which is the capital of North Kurdufan. It's a very populated city, it's the commercial center and very strategic hub for both SARS, but it's currently still under the army's control. So although the RSF now is encircling the city from three directions, north, west, and south, uh, the army still has control over the eastern road, which connects it to its territory. So the problem with this siege is that back to your point, Braun, about the global repercussions from the Iran conflict. So the situation in Sudan has been catastrophic even before this siege was imposed, of course, economically mostly. So lack of fuel, lack of resources, even the humanitarian aid can't reach regions because of all of these consequences of the, for example, lack of fuel and so on. So this siege already has a very catastrophic impact, even if our assessment is that the RSF will not be able to fully capture the city in the long run. It's probably going to continue this siege for a few months, maybe. And in the meantime, both sides will not have enough capacity to reach a breakthrough of some sort. So the army is not going to be able to fully break the siege, and the RSF is not going to fully be able to seize the city. So the effect is just a very huge impact on civilians, um, huge massive displacement, and uh that's mostly the impact of this siege.

SPEAKER_02 9:27

Can I ask on that, Nohad, why Abu Bayad?

SPEAKER_00 9:30

Yeah, so why I think that first of all we need to consider the recent losses of the RSF in the Blue Nile region, which is the eastern part that borders Ethiopia. So most of 2026, that's been the front line, but the RSF wasn't really able to advance much in that region, and now it's enduring more and more losses over there. So now I think it shifted the front line to a Lubbayat, first of all, because of how strategic it is as a commercial hub and it's the army's one of its central logistics hubs. That's the first part. So it wants to, I think, regain momentum by, you know, saying we're still here, we can still attack a very important city. And the second thing is, of course, its internal defections and infighting, which this has been going on, and I think we talked about also in a previous episode. So I think the series of losses that we saw on the RSF side prompted it to move to Al-Obayat. So even if it's not able to fully capture the city, we're still seeing a lot of media attention now and international attention where there are many warnings by international actors against a potential attack. And that's because of what people saw in Al-Fashir last year in uh the capital of North Darfur, which was a massive scale of impact on civilians. So now people are afraid of something like this replicating again in North Kurdan. But I think the impact is still very severe, even if the RSF doesn't manage to seize it. So I think that's why the timing is now, because it's kind of a a last resort given that it's not able to advance in other front lines.

SPEAKER_02 11:14

May I ask there on that? So what's happening in Al-Fasher now? Just a sense of like what happens kind of the months after the siege. And then the second question I have is are there other parts of Sudan that are the last stance for the RSF? Of course, they've lost their hold of Khartoum, as you've just said, they're losing Blue Nile. What's happening in Darfur and where else might they go after this?

SPEAKER_00 11:38

That's a very good question because I think people, with the whole media attention on Al Obayed, people are forgetting that there are still clashes in Darfur. So that's still ongoing. Although the RSF controls, of course, most urban regions, so Al-Fashir and all state capitals of five capitals of five states of Darfur. But there are still clashes against, for example, villages, fill like civilians in villages in North Darfur. The RSF is still pushing out the Zagrawa communities from these villages. And last week, which is the SAF's response to the siege on Alubayid, the Saft allied Darfur joint forces launched offensives in West Darfur and North Darfur. So this is also seen as a new thing that could shift the battlefield balance. At the moment, it's still a way to distract the RSF from Alubayid, North Kurdufan, so that it can move its troops to Darfur and then the army can basically shift the conflict back to Darfur. And I think this is currently working a bit because in the last few days we saw the RSF indeed is redeploying forces to Darfur. So it's kind of back and forth now between Kurdufan and Darfur with multiple front lines. And to answer your question about where else the battles concentrated, I think also South Kurdufan, which is the region where the RSF and its allied SPLM North are still, you know, there are still skirmishes there. But I think overall the situation is very similar to where it was last year, like this time last year. So it's mostly just drone warfare. There's no significant territorial gain. So I think, in my opinion, the RSF reached its maximum in terms of territorial gains. And that's why it's now shifting to, let's say, also diplomatic lobbying through its uh supporters, so mainly the UAE, because it's not able to achieve military gains.

SPEAKER_02 13:37

It's super interesting in the sense that, like, the RSF has suffered a lot of defections, it's lost a lot of its control, and it's being forced to spread out its remaining forces to weaken it almost everywhere as a result. And I think that you're totally correct about the diplomatic angle, is really one of the last ones left to either see it through this or to have some sort of a negotiated exit.

SPEAKER_00 14:00

Yeah, and to be fair, although the RSF, like we just discussed its weaknesses in the battlefield, but I think that the diplomatic lobbying is a bit successful given that the US posed sanctions recently, maybe last week or a few weeks ago. And although it was meant to be for both of the warring parties, it's clearly more impactful for the army. So it's against the armed companies. And so there's been a lot of discussion now about how the US's stance is more clearly aligned with the UAE. So it seems like this diplomatic lobbying is um working, at least on that side.

SPEAKER_01 14:37

I was going to mention the UN and their sort of investigation around the alleged atrocities, I think is how they're phrasing it. And what specifically they would be unpicking here, given, you know, how how long this has been going on for.

SPEAKER_00 14:50

Yeah, I think that uh there's really no lack of evidence when it comes to the scale of atrocities committed by both of the warring parties, but also mostly the RSF. And actually, in accolades, in last year in 2025, the RSF was classified as the deadliest non-state actor in the world, so not just in Africa. And so it has a very clear like impact on civilians. But I think that the UN and other international mechanisms are not very the it's not working, basically, in terms of doing anything in the Sudan conflict. Now it's in its fourth year, and still there wasn't anything very impactful in terms of the UN's talks or even like what they call now the the quad and these all the all of these different mechanisms involving like international actors. And the reason is clear, and actually Marco Rubio said that. He said that when it comes to Sudan, the problem is that the UAE and Saudi Arabia are not in agreement. So it's very difficult to reach any sort of agreement, even if the domestic warring parties reach that level. We're still seeing a huge divide between the UAE and Saudi Arabia who are supporting opposing sides of the conflict.

SPEAKER_01 16:05

Has that division got any worse? We were saying about the kind of knock-on effects of what's happening in in Iran and the Middle East. Has that has that division between Saudi and UAE got worse and had and had a worsening impact in Sudan since that started?

SPEAKER_00 16:20

Yes, I think so. I do think so. Although when the conflict in Iran began in February, we were discussing that maybe it would have an opposite effect, as in they would be more focused on what's going on there. But so far we've been seeing that the divide is now growing instead of them being in closer alignment. This is also the case in Yemen, where there was another rift between them. So I think that so far the division is bigger. And I think the latest US sanctions are also going to lead the army to take a harder stance against negotiations instead of forcing it to negotiate or reach a ceasefire. And the reason is that the US had imposed sanctions on Sudan for over 30 years. It's not a new thing. So I think they already operate using alternative routes, basically. So it's not going to have a huge impact on the conflict, but it has a political impact, which is these uh clearer regional alignments in Sudan and the Horn more broadly.

SPEAKER_02 17:18

Just wonder if this is like the hill that Saudi Arabia wants to die on, you know, with regard to its its confrontation with UAE. When they certainly have the straits that they need to ally on. They will have the Red Sea issues that they will need to coordinate on. And so maybe they are willing to let Sudan come to a solution that they don't need to put anything more into, I guess is how I put it.

SPEAKER_00 17:42

I do agree. I mean, Saudi Arabia's involvement is not as invested as the UAE, let's say. The UAE has invested a lot in this conflict. Saudi Arabia is invested, but I think it's more of a reaction to what the UAE is doing and the fact that it doesn't really want Sudan to be divided or like to have two parallel governments in Sudan. So that's why it's kind of blocking the UAE's efforts there. But I think also Saudi Arabia is still not 100% in alignment with the staff in some things. And particularly, it also wants a civilian-led government. And one of the staff's weaknesses is that although it's currently seems like it has a bit of more sustainable military operations, let's say, in Sudan, but politically and diplomatically, it needs to do a lot of effort so as to regain some of the trust because it's still accused of, let's say, hosting remnants of the former regime, which is an Islamist regime, the Bashir regime, and also deploying Islamist troops within the army and so on. And although it tried to distance itself from these Islamist groups, I think it's still not working given what we're seeing now with the sanctions and and also the Iran conflict, I think, made it a bit more difficult to distance itself. So now it has to do more effort to find the right, let's say, civilian blocs that would uh support it in its post-war arrangements, and that's what Saudi Arabia is now pushing for as well with the army.

SPEAKER_02 19:10

Very interesting. Very interesting. So you expect for this siege to continue and for the humanitarian impact to get much worse, and for there to be a similar impact as we saw in Al-Fashir, until there is a break in the Saudi UAE s let's say relationship again, and there's more room for the domestic actors to to go either way as a result of that break between two countries, neither of whom are near Sudan.

SPEAKER_00 19:38

Yes, I do think so. I think that although there are signs of like a potential ceasefire, as in there are a lot of talks happening now in Addis and Nairobi and so on, but still the gap is clear between the people doing the talks as in civilians and the actual armed actors fighting on the ground.

SPEAKER_02 19:56

You're you're a big fan of these people getting together to talk about a war that's still going on as if it is is over.

SPEAKER_00 20:02

Yeah, because I think that it's getting a lot of international attention and people are thinking that you know it's been a few months now where people are like, okay, maybe a ceasefire is near, but then everything happening on the ground shows the opposite. And I think now, more than ever, especially with like the sanctions and all of that, I think the hardliners in the army are going to support a military solution even more than before. Oh yeah. I think it's unfortunately it will continue like that for a few months.

SPEAKER_02 20:34

So so can I just ask just to ha just so I have this straight, right? In the sense that the RSF is kind of on the back legs here, right? But SAF has not been given the international support to kind of make a final move or make a decisive move towards it. They are also being kind of nicked by the international community to make sure that they don't seek a military solution for this as RSF is weakened. Would would that be a possible reading of this? As in, they're just trying to hold this off at the moment. Oh, you mean the South are trying to hold off? Yeah, they're the s the South is trying to hold off the RSF because they're not being despite how close it seems for the RSF to no longer be the counter that it used to be, the international community hasn't kind of reconciled itself with the notion that the SAF can win this if if given enough support at this last stage.

SPEAKER_00 21:28

Yes, exactly. I think actually the international community is still treating the SAF and the RSF as two parallel sides to this conflict. And maybe this was true in the beginning, and this was also the point of view of the people on the ground. Uh until the beginning of the conflict, many people were still protesting against the military rule of both SAF and RSF. But then now, almost four years into this conflict, I think everyone is very clearly prioritizing their survival because this is the only thing you can do when you're. Living in a place in l like Sudan. So the only way you can survive right now is to either take up arms to protect yourself, which is happening now in North Kurdan, or to join either the army or the RSF. I think the army gained more popularity due to this conflict, which is similar to what Bronn said earlier about Iran. I think this is happening in Sudan, which is more people are now supporting the army than let's say three or four years ago, which is just because it's the the next best option. But internationally, people are still not recognizing that because of this narrative that the RSF is supporting, let's say, a civilian rule and is trying to bring back civilian rule in Sudan. Also the narrative that the army is more Islamist aligned. This is a very international view. It's not a Sudanese view. I think most Sudanese people don't care very much about that discussion. I think what they care about is just the side that can maintain security for them. And this so far has been the army. This is why now in RSF-controlled regions, people are still not able to live over there because of the infighting and several different security issues. And actually the RSF is now fighting multiple conflicts. It's fighting the army, it's fighting like the infighting groups basically within the RSF. And also cross-border dynamics. Like now there are new things happening in Central African Republic, in Chad. So all of that, the Western border region, has a lot of clashes that are not directly related to the conflict.

SPEAKER_01 23:30

And it's interesting you mentioned what the international view is versus what people are actually caring about. Because a couple of headlines that have caught my eye this morning, there's news that BBC's World Service has launched a WhatsApp in Sudan so that they can get more kind of whether it's educational materials or health updates and stuff out to the public more directly. But then there's also headlines about various groups have been accused of child recruitment recently. And then the link that's been made continuously throughout this is the the use of drones. So this was something that actually me and the data team were looking at the use of drones more broadly in our data, Ukraine and Russia and Israel, the RSF and the military forces of Sudan were in the highest use of them and the highest fatality numbers there. And again, I don't think that is something that maybe the rest of the world is is aware of, the scale.

SPEAKER_00 24:22

Yes, I think the use of drones is actually the main reason why the conflict is still ongoing. So if it wasn't for these drones and uh air defense weapons and so on, I think it wouldn't have been ongoing for this long. They would have reached a stalemate, but drones allow it to extend beyond the front lines, and so now the RSF can reach self-controlled regions through drones and also the opposite. So that's why it's it's now a very high frequency of drones and airstrikes in in Sudan compared to the stalemate that we're seeing. And that's the problem with international intervention that's not working because sanctions and so on. For example, the US sanctioned uh say the network of Colombian mercenaries are supporting the RSF. Still, this is not a very significant thing compared to the actual flow of weapons, which is facilitated by, for example, the UAE. It's kind of like everyone is seeing it, but they're just ignoring it because you can't really do much. One of the headlines that I saw maybe in in The Guardians is that the UK is prioritizing its relationship with the UAE over preventing atrocities in Sudan. So this is the kind of thing that we're seeing in the West in general, which is that these countries do have a an important relationship to maintain with the UAE for different reasons. And that's why they're not really going to do anything that's significant.

SPEAKER_02 25:44

But you know, it's interesting because I do think that both of those account for the way that conflict will be continuing to change in the future. One is that it's going to be heavily based on who has the technological advantage and the advantage just in terms of equipment. And then the alliances or the or the interests of these countries will always take precedence over what some might consider to be more vague humanitarian concerns that don't have a direct domestic audience. I mean, you're a hundred percent correct that I think everybody has ignored their responsibility to Sudan, but a counter to that may be that they don't feel a responsibility to Sudan because they're not able to wield that into some sort of domestic benefit.

SPEAKER_01 26:30

So much of the world is looking at Sudan through an exclusively humanitarian lens. And when you see the coverage, that that's where it all is. And so it's it's difficult to separate the two, doing what we do. It's exactly as you say, you're talking about alliances and equipment and these technological advances that are game-changing.

SPEAKER_02 26:49

Yeah, I really can't say enough how even in the space of a few years, the humanitarian lens has been completely obliterated by the self-interested domestic politics and alliance lens for understanding conflicts, why they're continuing. So there's been some interesting news out of Somalia today that the US is pressuring the UN to stop using its money to fund the AU-backed mission in Somalia. And if they do so, the government will fall in some way, shape, or form. And that may allow for al-Shabaab, but in addition to that, Mohammed has told us that this may be because it is pressuring the government to allow for the Israeli UAE US base in Berbera to counter Turkey's airspace near Mogadishu, and the country may go for indirect elections. And what this tells us is that it's possible that this arrangement is being pushed in order to also influence the Sudanese arrangement, which, as Nohad has mentioned, is being determined by parties that are not within the conflict in Sudan. And these are interests involving the exact same parties, right? So you get one thing and you have to give up another, is maybe how the US is trying to play its role in African politics. What it's not doing is playing a humanitarian role.

SPEAKER_00 28:08

Yeah, I completely agree that the humanitarian aspect is basically not enough anymore. I think that's been clear in the Sudanese conflict. And that's why most people don't really have hopes in, let's say, some sort of international force coming and saving civilians or or these calls, which we always hear, because it's clear that there's no such thing that's going to stop the conflict or protect civilians. So the only thing that they can count on is basically these regional alliances. One of the things that I've noticed, for example, is that many people are basically putting their bet on the South and Saudi Arabia kind of countering the UAE. And this this because also this happened last year when I think it I wonder if I'm not sure if it was Mohammed or Khalid bin Salman, one of one of the the two princes, lobbied in the US and asked for the RSF to be designated as a terrorist organization. So these are the sort of things that people are now counting on because this is what clearly can make a difference, but unfortunately the humanitarian side is not really a key thing anymore.

SPEAKER_02 29:15

I think this is a really important aspect because we get the occasional complaint that we're not taking the humanitarian perspective on this podcast or increasingly in in the analysis, and it is because that is one that is not being shared or or certainly not being dominant in how decisions are being made about conflict. And we may not like it. In fact, we don't have to like it for it to be true. And it is certainly true. In this conflict, it is just so stark that those are the decision-making parameters, and it's not about the Sudanese, and it's, you know, it's not going to be about people in Central African Republic or Chad or Mali or Ethiopia or anywhere else. It's going to be about the geopolitics and the self-interest of these states and their leaders. So if you were to replace all kinds presumptions about humanitarian rights and also humanitarian responsibility with a concept of self-interest, I think you'd get a lot further in understanding what's happening in the world today.

SPEAKER_01 30:16

No, I agree. And it doesn't take away from how devastating those impacts are. It's when we're looking at the motivators and the trends and the driving forces. I mean, name any conflict. That's what we're looking for because it's physically driving it.

SPEAKER_02 30:31

And as No had said, you now need to put your argument, which may be indirectly about trying to make sure that Sudan can support itself, feed its citizens, etc., but you have to put it in a self-interested way in order to get these processes started.

SPEAKER_00 30:47

Yeah, and I think actually some of the effect of that is seen in the neighboring countries of Sudan realigning themselves. One of the headlines also was that Uganda, which was a country that was more clearly aligned with the RSF in the beginning, is now moving towards the army side, and they announced that they refuse or they reject any parallel government and so on. So people were discussing, well, why the change of art now? And I think that could be due to some of the things you said, which is like things that are not very visible but related to regional alignments, or the military situation itself, which is clear now that the RSF is not winning, so people are kind of reassessing their situation, especially in neighboring countries.

SPEAKER_01 31:33

Yeah, and it's always an impossible question, especially for conflicts that seem to have gone on for so long. But what is it that you both are looking for next then? What what are we anticipating to happen next in Sudan and what's gotta give?

SPEAKER_00 31:46

So I think that the most likely scenario that we're expecting is this siege continuing, but also due to the the army opening new front lines in the west in Darfur, we're also going to see one of two things happening. Either the siege continuing for months, and then it's just going to be a stalemate until some sort of negotiation can happen and a ceasefire, or that this new front line that they open in Darfur actually affects the RSF's troops in that region and then influences more defections and therefore weakening the RSF more and sort of shifting the balance of the battlefield. But for me, it's clear that neither the SAF nor the RSF has enough capacity to win in the short term. So the Army's strategy is to distract forces, to stretch them, to try to have more defections and infighting within the RSF ranks. And this has been the strategy so far in 2026 for the Army.

SPEAKER_02 32:45

I think that uh what happens in Sudan, how quickly it happens, that which Nohad has mentioned, either the siege or or just the kind of slow death of the RSF at the hands of SAF. I think that will either go quickly or slowly, depending on what's happening in the Red Sea. So as there needs to be some sort of a give in the UAE Saudi relationship or the US support for some of UAE's ideas, but less so for others, you'll see that direct reflection in what's happening in in Sudan, and you'll see a change of attention towards the Red Sea and with it a different conflict, but one where they don't want to have to deal with Sudan anymore because they could use those forces or they could use those means to contest on the Red Sea.

SPEAKER_01 33:30

Do you know what I would quite like? I'd quite like, you know, when you see a kind of police investigation in a film and you've got lots of pictures on the wall and different strings. Strings to yeah, I could really do with one of those if any of you have have have a spare, I don't know, six months to make one.

SPEAKER_02 33:46

I mean, you end up looking like a real psycho, I'll say that. Would help though. Yeah, I mean, and maybe it's not too far from the truth on my end. Neither of yours, of course. You both have such reasoned and lovely analysis. Okay, I think that's it for today. As always, it's been a pleasure, and we will see you next week. Thank you, everybody.

SPEAKER_01 34:06

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