About a year ago, I met a senior officer in the Sudanese army command, who is now at the center of military operations. I asked him this question of confrontation: How long does the army need to resolve with the “rapid support forces” in the event of an armed confrontation, and will it be a limited operation, or will the matter get out of control?
I remember very well that his response came with all military pride, stressing that the matter would only take a few hours and with insignificant losses. I asked him how? He simply told me that all of the “Rapid Support” sites are known to us with their coordinates, and that our officers (meaning army officers) are the military “Rapid Support” commanders, meaning that their loyalty to the army is unquestionable. He summed up the operation for me in: “A simultaneous siege on the Rapid Support sites and then forcing them to surrender.”
As for the incident, it became clear that my interlocutor had drowned in simplicity that violated the opponent’s intelligence and military capabilities, but rather his unbridled political ambition, as the Khartoum war between the Sudanese army and the “Rapid Support Forces” was about to complete its second month without a resolution looming on the horizon, amid questioning. Citizens about the real situation of the army regarding what happened on April 15 and after.
◙ The army’s strategy in its regular and classic capacity makes the situation similar to “digging with a needle”, and certainly some people will be forced to normalize with the war in light of the expanding hardship
The importance of this question lies in its close connection with the fate of the people and the possibilities of returning to normal, especially among the residents of Khartoum who were distributed among some nearby capitals and the various states of Sudan, while some of them inside Khartoum are still suffering between bullets, excessive prices and scarcity, as the country’s economy is witnessing an unprecedented deterioration. precedent. Some experts estimated the cost of the ongoing battles at about half a billion dollars per day, depending on the size of the losses, the obstacles to economic growth, and the disruption of vital services and facilities in the country.
The question of what is the fate or when to return to normal, the harshest confrontation of the scourge of war itself, the idea that you do not know when to return to your home or work or even to restore your normal life and sleep quietly away from the pounding of heavy artillery or the roar of warplanes, is a completely miserable idea. It is the researcher’s question about the hope of a return to normalcy, rather than the aspirations of military decisiveness that the fans of the war yearn for, and they do not exaggerate it.
The answer to this question necessarily opens the door wide to the big questions that must be asked, now and not tomorrow. Such questions should not be devoid of patriotic and moral rigor that reprimands this absurdity, which took its highest manifestation on April 15. Where is security and defense, which have taken the lion’s share of the country’s budget for years at the expense of education and health, and at the expense of everything? Actually, where does all this money go, if it is not for the protection and security of the citizen?
The question was imposed by the disbelieving reality that Khartoum has been living through since the explosion, when the city, the center of the country, has turned within a few hours to the mercy of the “rapid support forces” and with the almost complete absence of the army from the streets. The scene, in short, can be described by saying that the army has fortified itself within its units and left the citizens in the face of the “Rapid Support Forces” that spread heavily in the neighborhoods of the cities of Khartoum and Bahri and some neighborhoods of Omdurman like wildfire, which terrorized, violated, stole, killed, raped and expelled people from their homes without right and turned them into military barracks, and the city of Bahri, in particular, turned into a military operations city for the Rapid Support Forces.
The reality is not only the failure of the army to resolve the battle even after it approached two months, although its official and supportive media in the early days used to set a time limit set in hours, promising the people victory. The harshest reality is that despite the army’s initiation of a war of words with the Rapid Support Forces, which flared up for more than two months before the explosion, it was not ready for an armed confrontation. This is evident in the rapid control of the Rapid Support Forces in controlling vital sites without losing them so far, and in arresting prominent leaders in the army.
◙ Some experts estimated the cost of the ongoing battles at about half a billion dollars per day, depending on the size of the losses, the obstacles to economic growth, and the disruption of vital services and facilities in the country.
The “Rapid Support Forces” tightening their grip around Khartoum has already happened since the period that followed the fall of Al-Bashir on April 11, 2019, when these forces obtained a privileged position by allowing them to strategically deploy around and inside Khartoum and control all the headquarters of the dissolved National Congress Party, and some of the headquarters of the National Congress Party. Security. This happened amid the blessing and boasting of the Army Commander, Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, of the “Rapid Support Forces,” which were able in an unprecedented manner during his reign.
What happened last April 15 posed many questions, many of which will surely remain unanswered until the battle ends. What happened that day is an important interim in the history of the Sudanese state, and it will definitely be written about in detail and depth after the shock has cleared: the shock of the great horrors that occurred in Khartoum.
However, the question of the moment now is the question of national entitlement, constitutional and moral as well, which is the duty of armies to protect their citizens. Armies that hold the lion’s share of countries’ budgets over the years, and have an independent economy that the Ministry of Finance cannot find a way to. It is true that there are those who watch with pain, how an army has reached a very old age since its founding, and is unable to resolve a force that was established to be its auxiliary or support. This matter, although true, is not so simple, despite the influence of the Sudanese army in politics and economics since the country’s independence in 1956.
It turned out that the army was at the heart of the devastation that affected state institutions during the thirty years of Islamist rule, and that the budget for the security and defense sector, which was repeatedly criticized by the opposition, was not really going to build a strong army. The Islamists were known for following the policy of parallel institutions. The security apparatus, for example, was superior to the army in terms of economic and political influence and in terms of qualification and efficiency. Then the “Rapid Support Forces” were established under the pretext of “resolving the rebellion” in Darfur, and they also gained enormous privileges until they turned into an army. parallel.
◙ The army fortified itself within its units and left the citizens in the face of the “Rapid Support Forces” that deployed heavily in the neighborhoods of the cities of Khartoum and Bahri and some neighborhoods of Omdurman like wildfire.
Thus, a complete razing of state institutions took place in favor of parallel institutions, even the conditions of service, which became apparent in the army’s situation, not only now, but also years ago.
I remember very well that in 2016, the Minister of Defense at the time, Abd al-Rahim Muhammad Hussein, acknowledged the existence of a deficit in the ranks of the army due to the low response to recruitment, and he explained this by the demand for work in gold mining with the depreciation of the Sudanese pound. He also demanded before Parliament to address the poor salaries and prepare the army politically, economically, and psychologically, at a time when we have been witnessing the continuation of graduating thousands of recruits for the Rapid Support Forces since its official establishment in 2013. This explains the absence of infantry and the army’s reliance mainly on warplanes and artillery. , in the face of tens of thousands of “rapid support” infantry.
These weapons, although important in military systems, are useless in urban warfare. This is considered an axiom that many military men have talked about, and the experience of fifty days in the fierce battles taking place now proves that the army was unable to achieve military gains on the ground as befitting its situation. Perhaps this is what prompted prominent officers to advise the use of fighting groups from outside the army units to impose control on the ground, despite the assessment of some of those at the heart of the military operations that 40 percent of the Rapid Support Force had been destroyed and that the army would advance militarily, but imperceptibly to the citizen.
According to the army’s “rapid support” strategy, which everyone has followed since the day of the explosion, the Khartoum war will take months. The strategy of the army in its regular and classic capacity makes the situation similar to “digging with a needle.” Certainly, some people will be forced to normalize with the war in light of the expanding hardship of living, but it is certain that the situation after April 15 is completely different, and in the future it will impose fundamental changes on all aspects.
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