ISTANBUL

The Sudanese army launched airstrikes on positions of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Central Darfur and North Kordofan states on Thursday, amid escalating fighting in the war-torn country, local media said.

Al-Mashad Al-Sudani news outlet reported that Sudanese warplanes struck RSF sites in the two states as the army expanded its aerial offensive to dismantle the combat structure of the rebel group.

In recent days, the Sudanese army intensified its ground and air attacks in an attempt to expel RSF forces from the areas they captured in recent days.

On Wednesday, the chairman of Sudan’s Transitional Sovereignty Council, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, affirmed the army’s commitment to eliminate the RSF and avenge civilian bloodshed by the rebel group in El-Fasher city and other cities.

The paramilitary group on Wednesday claimed that several drone strikes were launched from “a foreign base” targeting Zalingei, the capital of the Central Darfur state, and Kabkabiya town in North Darfur.

The RSF captured El-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state and a strategic city in the region, on Oct. 26 and carried out massacres of civilians, according to local and international organizations, triggering warnings that the takeover could cement a geographic partition of the war-torn country.

The group claimed in late October that it had seized Bara in North Kordofan, forcing more than 4,500 residents to flee amid reports of widespread abuses. The town lies close to El-Obeid, the region’s strategic capital, now firmly held by the army but increasingly encircled by the RSF.

Out of Sudan’s 18 states, the RSF currently controls all five states of the Darfur region in the west, except some northern areas in North Darfur that remain under army control. The Sudanese army rules over most of the remaining 13 states in the south, north, east, and central regions, including the capital, Khartoum.

Since April 15, 2023, the Sudanese army and the RSF have been locked in a war that regional and international mediations have failed to end. The conflict has killed thousands of people and displaced millions of others.