The Rapid Support Forces yesterday launched a fierce attack on the headquarters of the 22nd Infantry Division in Babanusa, following two days of clashes on the town’s outskirts and inside neighborhoods.
The Sudanese army troops in the West Kordofan city are now outnumbered and cannot be easily reinforced. If they succeed in repulsing the attack, they would end a series of military disasters that the army has suffered at the hands of the renegade paramilitary, checking the RSF’s relentless advance through west and central Sudan.
Defeat, on the other hand, would add to the RSF’s military momentum while amplifying the army’s problems with morale and manpower.
RSF’s leader, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, a former camel trader with a third-grade education, has vowed to bring the military regime to its knees.
Dagalo’s troops yesterday succeeded in overrunning some defensive positions in Babanusa, according to videos filmed by the RSF at army earthworks yesterday. Fighting continued past nightfall, according to a local source.
The RSF now control large parts of the city, including the locality headquarters, the police station, and part of the market. At least 12 civilians died in the fighting, according to a list of victims from another local source.
The 22nd Infantry Division, which is defending Babanusa, is an understrength division, depleted by a series of defections and a stinging defeat at Baleela oilfield in October, where the RSF destroyed a brigade, massacred prisoners of war, and killed the divisions’ deputy commander Brigadier General Khaled al-Fadil.
The division is commanded by Maj Gen Muawia Hamad Abdullah, who appeared in a video yesterday rallying his troops at a trench line. Wearing sandals and holding a radio, he greeted his men, saying, “God is great!”
For their part, the RSF arrived in Babanusa in convoys of their signature “technicals”—pickup trucks mounted with a heavy gun such as a Dushka or ZPU-2. The RSF’s unchallenged dominance of rural areas in western Sudan allowed it to mobilize troops from multiple regions to participate in the attack, including from neighboring Darfur.
Politically, the attack risks alienating local tribal leaders who had tried to broker a truce to avoid fighting in the town. West Kordofan’s dominant Misseriya Arab tribe have divided loyalties. Although many support the RSF, others are ambivalent or hostile to the RSF. For economic reasons, they have an interest in preventing fighting in West Kordofan’s cities and oilfields, which are a major source of employment.
Located in the south of the state, near the border with South Sudan, the oilfields remain under control of the Sudan Armed Forces. It's unclear if the RSF will target the oilfields. Contacts between the RSF and the Chinese and Malaysian firms that operate those oilfields could potentially result in a deal to avoid fighting in the area.
In that case, the RSF might turn instead to El Obeid or Kadugli—cities in neighboring states that are well-defended but isolated. The towns of an-Nahud and al-Fula, the West Kordofan capital, would also be at risk. These towns are lightly defended and resistance could collapse quickly once Babanusa is overrun.
Thousands of Babanusa residents have fled the city since last week. They are living in nearby villages and small cities, without medical care, adequate food, or shelter.
Prolonged fighting in Babanusa would result in a further deterioration the humanitarian situation. Even if the RSF score a quick victory in Babanusa and the fighting ends, residents who return to the city would be at risk of brutal retaliatory air raids of the kind carried out by the Sudan Air Force in Nyala and Ed Daien after the army bases in those cities were overrun last year.
Airstrikes have already taken place in several areas of Babanusa and nearby villages, including reportedly at the Babanusa diary factory.
Satellite images from September 23 show fires near the 22nd Division headquarters, which is located on the western side of Babanusa (graphic by Faisal El Sheikh).