The commander of Sudan's Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has ordered the creation of a security and defence council, with a mandate of establishing a “new national army” comprising his paramilitary force and allied rebel groups.
The decree issued by Gen Mohamed Dagalo deepens the de facto break-up of the vast Afro-Arab nation after more than three years of devastating civil war between the RSF and the Sudanese Armed Forces.
The warring parties have each formed a government to run the area under their control. However, army chief Gen Abdel Fattah Al Burhan is recognised internationally as Sudan's de facto ruler.
The military-aligned government sits in Port Sudan on the Red Sea, while the RSF is based in Nyala in Darfur, the western region under the control of the paramilitary group.
Gen Dagalo's decree, released late on Tuesday, says the Defence and Security Council will “endorse a plan to create a new national army with a new fighting doctrine. Its nucleus will be the Rapid Support Forces, Sudan People's Liberation Army and other armed resistance groups.”
The SPLA, which has been fighting government forces for decades, controls much of the Kordofan region adjoining Darfur, including the southern Nuba Mountains.
According to the decree, the council's mandate includes establishing security and intelligence agencies, and laying out strategies for “achieving international peace and security, counter-terrorism and combating cross-border organised crime and illegal migration”.
Gen Dagalo named himself chairman of the council, members of which include the Prime Minister and the ministers of defence, foreign affairs, justice, interior and finance.
The RSF, whose forerunner is the notorious, Darfur-based Janjaweed militia, has been trying to cultivate an image of a progressive movement fighting for inclusion and democracy in the religiously and ethnically diverse country.
The RSF says the national army is dominated by Islamists who were once enforcers of deposed dictator Omar Al Bashir's oppressive regime and are now seeking to recreate it.
Al Bashir was removed from power by his generals in 2019 under a popular uprising that sought the restoration of democratic rule, but Gen Al Burhan and Gen Dagalo jointly staged a coup in 2021 that toppled a civilian-led government overseeing the nation's democratic transition.
The coup plunged Sudan into economic, political and security crises that contributed to the outbreak of civil war in April 2023, after months of tension between the two generals over their place in a democratic Sudan boiled over into open conflict.
The RSF now controls Darfur as well as parts of Kordofan and the southern Blue Nile State, while the army holds sway over the capital Khartoum, and Sudan's eastern, northern and central regions.
Both are accused of war crimes, with the army facing charges of using chemical weapons and indiscriminate bombing. The RSF faces accusations of ethnically motivated killing and widespread sexual assault.
Gen Al Burhan has repeatedly rejected regional and international peace initiatives, saying he will continue fighting until the RSF is vanquished, while the RSF has shown a willingness to negotiate an end to the conflict that has killed tens of thousands, displaced more than 12 million and left about 20 million facing hunger.
On Wednesday, the Saudi-owned Asharq Al Awsat news outlet reported that representatives of civilian groups aligned with the war rivals had gathered in Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa for dialogue on Sudan's future, sponsored by the Arab League, African Union, European Union, UN and IGAD, an eight-nation trade bloc in East Africa.
There was no independent confirmation of the meeting but similar gatherings in the past have failed to influence the trajectory of the war, or bring about peace negotiations.
