The First Siege of al-Fashir, 1884: Prototype of a Modern Atrocity

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Andrew McGregor

AIS Historical Background Report

December 3, 2025

Fighters of Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) entered the North Darfur capital of al-Fashir in late October, launching a wave of atrocities based on ethnic persecution of non-Arab tribal groups in Darfur. The 18-month siege of al-Fashir that preceded these terrible events bore many parallels to the first siege of the city in 1884, one in which many Arab ancestors of current RSF personnel participated as followers of the Sudanese Mahdi, Muhammad Ahmad. Then, as now, most of the besieged were non-Arab and faced a similar fate when their defenses were overrun.

Map of the Sultanate of Darfur, 1914 

With the encouragement of his Ta’ashi Arab deputy, ‘Abd Allahi, Muhammad Ahmad proclaimed himself the expected Mahdi in 1881. The Mahdi as a messianic figure who appears at the end of time to restore justice in an oppressive world before the arrival of the Nabi Isa (the Prophet Jesus) figures prominently in both Sunni and Shi’ite eschatology (the study of final judgment and the last days of mankind).

Pious and charismatic, Muhammad Ahmad put himself at the head of a growing rebellion against the massively unpopular rule of Egypt’s Turko-Egyptian elite. The Turko-Egyptians invaded Sudan in 1821, replacing numerous chiefdoms and kingdoms with their own rule, one that was at once parsimonious, rapacious, grasping, incompetent and exploitative. Besides brutal methods of tax collection, the new elite angered many Sudanese by their interference in the slave trade, a thriving institution in Sudan. This interference was made more irksome by Egyptian Army officers who appeared publicly to be working to end slavery while making immense profits through their own covert involvement in the trade.

Muhammad Ahmad, the Sudanese Mahdi

A former Sufi, Muhammad Ahmad was a Dongolawi (one of three powerful groups of Arabized Nubians, including the Ja’alin and the Sha’iqiya) from northern Sudan. He began to attract followers, the so-called ansar (“supporters,” i.e., of religion), at his base on Aba Island in the White Nile. Forced from Aba by government troops, the Mahdi and his followers fled to the Nuba mountains of southern Kordofan and later into the plains of northern Kordofan, where they began besieging towns held by Turko-Egyptian troops, including local recruits, many of whom were Blacks taken as slaves by government-backed slaving expeditions. With Kordofan largely under Mahdist control, Muhammad Ahmad turned his attention west to the old sultanate of Darfur, a powerful Muslim kingdom since its foundation by the Fur people of Jabal Marra in the 17th century, but under Egyptian control since 1874. Al-Fashir, the sultanate’s capital, was established by Sultan ‘Abd al-Rahman in 1792 in the plains east of the mountainous Fur homeland of Jabal Marra. Formerly, the Fur sultans had maintained a peripatetic court, roaming the hills of Jabal Marra.

After many years of expansion, Darfur was nearly two-thirds non-Fur by the time of the 1884 siege. Intermarriage with non-Fur ethnic groups had been encouraged in the royal family as a means of consolidating political control, and by the latter half of the 19th century the royal family was probably as much Zaghawa by blood as Fur. Fur was still the court language, but Arabic was the language of official correspondence. A willingness to bring non-Fur into important administrative positions, a reliance on slave labor and a high tolerance for pre-Islamic religious practices helped maintain the Fur royalty. The main dissenters were the nomadic Baqqara (cattle-herding) Arabs of southern Darfur, who maintained their independence by retreating into the marshes along the border with the southern region of Bahr al-Ghazal whenever the sultan decided it was time to send out a punitive column to bring them in line. Repeated clashes grew into bitterness on both sides, a situation that only deteriorated under the rule of the Turko-Egyptians, leaving both the Baqqara tribes and their northern Abbala (camel-herding) Arab cousins ready to be led into full-scale revolt under a strong leader such as the Mahdi, who represented a local form of Islam that differed from that promoted by the Egyptian religious scholars who had followed the army into Sudan and set up their own government-allied form of Islam.

Zubayr Takes al-Fashir – 1874

In 1883, al-Fashir was a town of only 2650 people, including both Arabs and non-Arab groups such as the Fur, the Zaghawa, the Berti and others. By the time of the siege a year later, it had been ten years since the powerful slaver and freebooter Zubayr Mansur Pasha had roared north to conquer Darfur with an army of loyal Black slave-troops (bazinger-s) from his headquarters in Bahr al-Ghazal. [1]

Zubayr Mansur Pasha

Zubayr was a Nile Valley Ja’ali of modest background who had worked his way up through the ranks of the slavers busy depopulating parts of southern Sudan in the mid-19th century. He had become wealthy and powerful through his subjugation of the immense southern province of Bahr al-Ghazal before eying the riches of its independent northern neighbor, the sultanate of Darfur. After the defeat and death of Fur sultan Ibrahim Qarad bin Muhammad Husayn in a great battle at Manawashi in 1874, the way was open for Zubayr to enter al-Fashir without a fight on November 2, 1874. The Fur capital was thoroughly looted by Zubayr, who had sworn allegiance to the Egyptian khedive but acted mainly in his own interests. As Zubayr led his army west to conquer neighboring Wadai Sultanate, a weaker detachment of the Egyptian Army entered al-Fashir five days after Zubayr. These troops were led by Governor General Isma’il Ayub Pasha, who claimed Darfur for the growing Egyptian Empire in Africa and confiscated much of the loot Zubayr had left behind in al-Fashir. Isma’il Ayub claimed most of the credit for taking al-Fashir and was duly promoted, while Zubayr found himself cheated out of his anticipated khedive-approved rule of Darfur. Zubayr departed to protest in person in Cairo, where, being judged as overly ambitious and a threat to Egyptian sovereignty in Sudan, he was compelled to remain in comfortable but closely-watched exile. [2]

Opposite the sultan’s al-Fashir palace, Isma’il Ayub ordered the construction of a square fort with a deep trench and bank patrolled by sentries. Inside the fort was a house for the governor and barracks for the troops (Na’um Bey, 1913). A strong zariba (fence made of thorn bushes) surrounded the defenses. A gun at each angle was sufficient to control the town under normal circumstances.

Alexander Macomb Mason Bey

When F Sidney Ensor visited al-Fashir in the late 1870s during an Egyptian government railroad survey, he found the palace occupied by Colonel Alexander Macomb Mason Bey, a Confederate veteran of the Virginia State Navy. Mason was on the staff of the Egyptian khedive after a stint fighting Spain as a mercenary officer in the Chilean Navy. Improvements to the remains of the old palace were made by Egyptian troops to make it suitable for the accommodation of officers, including floors of Norway pine imported at great expense from England.

Slatin and the Loss of Darfur

Rudolf Slatin, a 27-year-old Austrian mercenary in the employ of the Khedive in Sudan, was with the Mahdist army at the time al-Fashir was taken, only seven days after he had surrendered. Slatin, despite only a brief employment by the Austro-Hungarian Army in the Balkans, arrived in Darfur in 1879 and was soon after appointed governor of Darfur in 1881 by Sudan’s governor general, Muhammad Rauf Pasha.

Rudolf Slatin in Mahdist Uniform

The young Austrian’s time was almost immediately consumed by military matters, fighting a series of battles, first against the displaced Fur royals, then against the Arabs who had rallied to the Mahdi. In a desperate move, he converted to Islam in 1883 in an unsuccessful attempt to rally his Muslim troops shortly before his surrender at Dara. Thus began Slatin’s 11-year residence in the camp of the Mahdi and his successor, the Khalifa (“successor”). His surrender was marred, however, by his surprising failure to first destroy the Dara garrison’s vast stocks of powder, ammunition and other war materiel that now fell into the eager hands of the Mahdists.

Mahdist Assault on al-Fashir

In early January, 1884, Amir Muhammad Bey Khalid “Zuqal” began marching on al-Fashir, which had already indicated its intention of surrendering after receiving letters from Slatin (now in the Mahdist camp) urging its commander to do so. In anticipation of surrender, the garrison had sent the keys to the treasury to Zuqal by courier and adopted the patched jibba-s (cotton outer garments) worn by the Mahdists. All seemed ready for a peaceful transfer of power; the Egyptian troops were expected to shift their allegiance to the Mahdi.

Zuqal, a Ja’ali Arab from the Nile Valley, had once been one of Slatin’s aides. As a trader and government official, Zuqal was a member of the Bahhara (“those of the river”), the Arab (or Arabo-Nubian) tribes of northern Sudan’s Nile region who had spread as traders throughout Sudan in the wake of the 19th century Turko-Egyptian expansion. A relative of the Mahdi, he was sent by Slatin to Kordofan to appeal to the Mahdi to refrain from raising a rebellion amongst the Arabs in Darfur. Zuqal instead transferred his loyalties to Muhammad Ahmad, being appointed Darfur’s new governor in turn after Slatin’s surrender on December 23, 1883. Many of the smaller Egyptian Army outposts in Darfur soon followed Slatin’s lead, especially after it became known that the Egyptian Army relief expedition led by General William Hicks Pasha (a veteran of the Indian Army) had been utterly destroyed by the Mahdi in Kordofan in November.

The commander of the Fashir garrison and governor of the city since 1879 was Sa’id Bey Juma’a, a native of Egypt’s Fayyum Oasis. Well known for his “rich vocabulary of bad language,” Sa’id Bey was not always popular with his fellow officers, but was known for his personal courage and devotion to Darfur (Hill,1967, p.325).

Sa’id Bey Juma’a in Mahdist Uniform

Sa’id Bey was a hard man, but not a stupid man. His small garrison was already weak before the Mahdist siege started. In August 1883, he had dispatched a large force from al-Fashir to clear the surrounding region of insurgents; only 99 men returned. Since then, the Mahdists had only grown in numbers, especially after the defeat of Hicks Pasha and the capture of thousands of Remington rifles. Sa’id Bey and the people of al-Fashir had already decided to submit to the Mahdi, but began to think twice when they heard of the atrocities that had followed the capitulation of Dara, Slatin Bey’s former headquarters (Slatin, p.248).

In the way that the flapping of a butterfly’s wings might be the first breath of a hurricane, one ill-advised admonition changed what was intended to be a peaceful transition of power into a bloody weeks-long confrontation followed by scenes of torture and murder. The courier between al-Fashir and Zuqal’s camp, a local fiki (rural holy man) named Khalifa ‘Abd al-Rahman, full of the religious fervor of the Mahdist revolution and its prohibitions on alcohol and tobacco, piously informed Sa’id Bey Juma’a that he must stop smoking cigarettes.

This was the last straw for Sa’id Bey, who was already alarmed by the brutality dealt out to the officers and leading citizens of Dara and Um Shanga after they had been guaranteed safety. The Bey issued orders for the imprudent fiki to be shot and for his men to discard their Mahdist jibba-s and re-don the uniforms of the Egyptian Army. The fiki somehow escaped his appearance before a firing squad and sent a message to Zuqal regarding Sa’id Bey’s change of heart, no doubt omitting his own role in that reversal. Sa’id Bey now prepared to meet Zuqal’s army with a garrison of 1,000 men, 10 guns and a hand-cranked Gatling gun. The city’s weak point was its wells, the only source of fresh water, which lay just outside the city walls. These could only be used during a siege by teams working under the protection of cover fire from the walls.

Zuqal launched three assaults on the town, each of which was repelled by the desperate garrison. Sa’id Bey in turn launched several unsuccessful sorties. The Mahdist Amir was compelled to send for reinforcements from Dara and Kabkabiya while recruiting local Arabs to help invest the city. An attempt to bombard the city into submission was made, using artillery captured from other units of the Egyptian Army. This too failed, as the experienced gunners of the Fashir garrison targeted and destroyed the Mahdist guns (Wingate, pp. 130-131).

Death of Hicks Pasha at the Battle of Shaykan

Amir Zuqal, who had taken up a position on the site of Sultan Ibrahim’s old palace now ordered his men to fill in the wells just under the city walls, which was carried out under heavy fire from above. The Amir also ordered the captured munitions brought up from Dara that Slatin had failed to destroy before his surrender. As thirst and hunger increased within the walls, Zuqal ordered Slatin (who had also been brought up from Dara for this purpose) to write Sa’id Bey, urging him to capitulate. With the Egyptian Army relief column having already been destroyed by the Mahdi at Shaykan (Kordofan) in November 1883, there was now no alternative to surrender after 15 days of siege. Sa’id Bey would later say that the garrison could have held out at al-Fashir, but for the ammunition stores that Slatin had turned over to the Mahdists (Neufeld, 1899, pp.319-320).

Occupation of al-Fashir

With the city having been so recently looted of its treasures in 1874 by Zubayr and the Egyptian Army (which confiscated some of Zubayr’s loot for transport to Cairo), the Mahdists turned to extreme measures to find wealth they were certain had been hidden by merchants and officers of the Egyptian garrison.

According to Slatin, who witnessed events from the Mahdist camp: “The horrible scenes at Dara were now re-enacted with even greater severity, and numbers of people were tortured in the most merciless manner” (Slatin, p. 149). Egyptian officers were targeted especially; Major Hamada Effendi was flogged daily for three days in an unsuccessful attempt to make him reveal where his money was hidden; after the flogging ceased each day, a mixture of salt-water and hot peppers was poured over his ragged flesh. Called a slave by one of his captors, another officer, Ibrahim Tagalawi, shot his wife, his brother and himself; Sa’id Agha Fula committed suicide rather than undergo the disgrace of flogging. The Mahdi’s army had need of professional soldiers, so Zuqal eventually ordered a halt to the floggings and beatings of the officers. Sa’id Bey Juma’a, the bristly nicotine-deprived governor, escaped death only through the intervention of Slatin and, after a term of imprisonment, became chief of the Mahdist artillery in the siege of Khartoum. Slatin became a closely-watched bodyguard and advisor to the Mahdi’s successor, Khalifa ‘Abd Allahi al-Ta’aisha, before escaping from Omdurman in 1895.

Only days after the fall of al-Fashir, Slatin received a letter containing orders he could no longer carry out as a prisoner of the Mahdi. Khartoum had instructed him to concentrate all his men and supplies at al-Fashir and there await the arrival of Fur “sultan” ‘Abd al-Shakur ibn ‘Abd al-Rahman Shattut, who would restore Fur rule in al-Fashir under Egyptian sovereignty. That was Governor General Gordon’s plan. In reality, ‘Abd al-Shakur, who had been plucked from the Fur royal exiles living in Cairo since 1874, made only a sluggish, alcohol-fogged procession up the Nile, failing to get much further than Dongola. Gordon pulled the plug on the whole operation and ‘Abd al-Shakur returned to the safety of obscurity.

Conqueror of al-Fashir

Zuqal crowned his conquest of the Fur capital by marrying the Iya Basi (Fur – “great sister”), a traditional pre-Islamic position in the Fur royal hierarchy assumed by a full sister of the sultan. The Iya Basi maintained her own palace, wealth and retinue of hundreds of slaves and servants. Now comfortably ensconced in al-Fashir, Zuqal began the dangerous practice of ignoring summonses from the Mahdi to join his forces in Kordofan.

At the time of the siege, Sultan Harun Dud Banga was in the ancestral Fur homeland, the mountains of Jabal Marra, where he had been fighting a guerrilla campaign against the Turko-Egyptians. With the Egyptian Army no longer a threat after their collapse in Darfur, the sultan was faced with a new and more dangerous enemy – the Mahdists, with their core of Arab tribesmen who had resisted Fur rule for many years. Zuqal assembled an army of captured Sudanese regulars who had served in the Egyptian Army and Black slave troops (bazinger-s), supplemented by as many as 20,000 Arabs. The Mahdist army marched into the hills of Jabal Marra, where they cornered Sultan Harun in a hill-top stronghold. The Mahdists suffered enormous losses storming the fortress, but eventually broke resistance after a two-month siege. Harun was enlisted in the Mahdi’s army and reported to have met his death a few years later fighting the Abyssinians at Gallabat in 1889, though another account claims he survived the Mahdiya and lived quietly at al-Qadarif in eastern Sudan until 1903. [3]

The Mahdi died soon after the conquest of Khartoum and the death of hir rival Gordon, but Zuqal remained at al-Fashir until March 1886, when he finally responded to a series of letters from the Khalifa ‘Abd Allahi summoning him to Omdurman. The main obstacle to ‘Abd Allahi’s efforts to consolidate his power as the Mahdi’s successor came from the Mahdi’s Nile Valley Arab relatives, the Ashraf; Zuqal, as a relative of the Mahdi, was now under suspicion. His departure for Omdurman with a large armed following only alarmed the Khalifa, who ordered Hamdan Abu ‘Anja to intercept Zuqal’s party. Zuqal quickly found himself under arrest at al-‘Ubayd in Kordofan, relieved of his soldiers and his wealth (Wingate, pp.291-292).

After the Ashraf ceased to be a threat to ‘Abd Allahi’s power, Zuqal found his way back into the Khalifa’s good graces and back out again. He was eventually exiled to Rajaf in southern Sudan but freed by Belgian forces in 1897. [4] He returned to Darfur only to be executed by ‘Ali Dinar, who had restored the Fur Sultanate in the days after the Battle of Omdurman (1898). Zuqal was taken into the hills of Jabal Marra, where he was “lowered into a well containing the bones of many former offenders, the rope cut, and left to die, with a guard posted to ensure no assistance” (Egyptian Army Military Intelligence Summary, 1902).

Aftermath

Many of the Black soldiers who served under Slatin before being absorbed into the Mahdist ranks mutinied in al-‘Ubayd in October 1885. Most of these troops came from the Nuba Hills of South Kordofan, and it was to that place that they marched, still in order and under arms. Such defiance could not be condoned by the Khalifa, and Mahdist troops spent months exterminating the mutineers in the hills.

Egyptian Troops in Action in Sudan, 1879

Sa’id Bey died in his home oasis of Fayyum in 1912, having sought a quiet life there since his experiences in the Mahdiya.

When Sultan ‘Ali Dinar revived the Fur Sultanate in 1898, he began repairing the damage and neglect of the city by ordering the construction of a vast new palace compound (hosh) and mosque, as well as a qubba-style (beehive-shaped) memorial to his father, Zakariya. Despite the ever-present risk of a raid by the restless Arab Baqqara (especially the Rizayqat of Musa Madibbo), al-Fashir grew in importance and prosperity under Sultan ‘Ali Dinar until 1916, when it was occupied once more by the Egyptian Army, this time under British leadership and direction.

Notes

  1. Egyptian ranks and titles used in this paper include Agha, Bey, Effendi, Khedive and Pasha. All were part of the Turkish nomenclature for political and military titles, Turkish still being the working language of the Egyptian Army in the 19th Definitions below (with the exception of khedive) are those relevant to military usage.

Agha: An honorific for officers below the rank of Kaimakam (roughly ‘colonel’), it also tended to indicate the officer was non-literate.

Bey: An honorific for senior officers below the level of Pasha, available in several grades.

Effendi: Like Agha, an honorific for officers below the rank of Kaimakam, but implying literacy and education.

Khedive: “Viceroy,” i.e. of the Ottoman sultan. Originally from the Persian khediv. Though first used by Muhammad ‘Ali in 1805, its use was only recognized officially by the Ottoman sultan from 1867 to 1914.

Pasha: Another Turkish term with Persian origins, Pasha was the highest title, available in four grades for military officers.

  1. For the consequent collusion between Zubayr in Cairo and his ill-fated son Sulayman in Bahr al-Ghazal, see: “Romolo Gessi Pasha: Early Counter-Insurgency Lessons from an Italian Soldier of Fortune’s Campaign in Central Africa,” Military History Online/AIS, August 21, 2016, https://www.aberfoylesecurity.com/?p=3696
  2. For Gallabat, see Hill (1967), p.4 and Wingate (1891), p.325; for al-Qadarif, see Sudan Archives Durham SAD 731/6/68 and HHS Morant: “Recent History of Darfur” (Sudan Military Intelligence Report no.104).
  3. Rajaf, a town in Central Equatoria (now part of the state of South Sudan), was near the southernmost extent of the Mahdist state and used as a place of exile for those who offended the Khalifa. The Mahdists were expelled from the town in February 1897 by Congo Free State forces led by Louis-Napoléon Chaltin, a veteran of the 1882-1884 Congo Free State war with Zanzibari Arab merchants and slavers.

Bibliography

Egyptian Army Military Intelligence Summary (MIS) no. 93, April 1902, Sudan Archives Durham, SAD 735/3/1-27.

Ensor, F. Sidney: Incidents on a Journey through Nubia to Darfoor, WH Allen, London, 1881.

Farwell, Byron: Prisoners of the Mahdi, Harper and Row, New York, 1967.

Haim Shaked: The Life of the Sudanese Mahdi: A Historical Study of Kitab sa’adat al-mustahdi bi-sirat al-Imam al-Mahdi by Isma’il b. ‘Abd al-Qadir, Transaction Books, New Brunswick N.J., 1978.

Hill, Richard: A Biographical Dictionary of the Sudan, 2nd Ed., Frank Cass & Co., London, 1967.

Holt, PM: The Mahdist State in the Sudan, 1881-1898: A study of its origins, development and overthrow, (2nd ed.), Oxford, 1970.

Lampen, GD: “History of Darfur,” Sudan Notes and Records 31(2), 1950, pp. 177-209.

Mamdani, Mahmood: Saviors and Survivors: Darfur, Politics, and the War on Terror, Pantheon Books, New York, 2009.

McGregor, Andrew: “American Civil War Veterans and the Egyptian Empire in Africa,” A lecture given at the Royal Canadian Military Institute, Toronto, March 28, 2018, https://www.aberfoylesecurity.com/?p=4264

Na’um Bey Shuqair: “The Masalit and Tama Sultanates: Are they within Darfur or Wadai Sultanate,” Typescript, February 2, 1913, Sudan Archives Durham, SAD 731/6/109.

Neufeld, Charles: A Prisoner of the Khaleefa. Twelve Years Captivity at Omdurman, Chapman & Hall, Ltd., London, 1899.

Report on the Egyptian Provinces of the Sûdan, Red Sea, and Equator, Intelligence Branch, Horse Guards, War Office, HM Stationary Office, London, 1883.

Slatin Pasha, Colonel Sir Rudolf: Fire and Sword in the Sudan: A Personal Narrative of Fighting and Serving the Dervishes, 1879-1895, Edwin Arnold, London, 1897.

Theobald, AB: The Mahdiya: A History of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, 1881-1899, Longmans, Green and Co., London, 1951.

Wingate, Major FR: Mahdiism and the Egyptian Sudan, MacMillan and Co., London, 1891.

 

Rapid Support Forces Establish Rival Government as Sudan’s War Spirals

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Terrorism Monitor

Jamestown Foundation, Washington DC

November 20, 2025

Executive Summary:

  • The Rapid Support Forces’ (RSF) capture of al-Fashir, accompanied by exterminatory extrajudicial killings after an 18-month siege, represents the militia’s most significant territorial victory to date and accelerates the effective partition of Sudan.
  • With control over most of Darfur and parts of Kordofan and Blue Nile, the RSF is consolidating a parallel “Tasis State,” seeking external legitimacy despite its reliance on predatory militias and systematic abuses.
  • The Sudanese Armed Forces–Transitional Sovereignty Council (SAF–TSC) coalition remains internally divided and constrained by Islamist-aligned networks, leaving both major coalitions dependent on abusive partners and limiting prospects for a negotiated national political settlement.

Until 2005, Sudan was Africa’s largest country by territory size. After 22 years of civil war, South Sudan separated, taking the nation’s oil wealth and roughly one-third of its territory with it. Today, after two-and-one-half years of a new civil war, the rebel Rapid Support Forces (RSF) declared its intention on July 2 to form a new state, splitting the country once again. Though the RSF’s stated intention is to form a new government for all Sudan, it is in reality now focusing on consolidating its control of the western provinces of Kordofan and Darfur, having been ejected from Khartoum and the central region of al-Jazirah by the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and its allies.

(Maprr)

The initiative is designed to provide legitimacy and access to aid and arms for a paramilitary accused of genocide, ethnic cleansing, looting, destruction of cultural institutions, sexual violence, war crimes and widespread atrocities.

The Battle for al-Fashir

RSF Fighter with Dead Civilians

Crucial to the establishment of a new RSF state based largely in western Sudan is the seizure and occupation of al-Fashir, the traditional capital of Darfur since its founding in the late 18th century as capital of the Fur Sultanate. After an 18-month siege, the city was taken by the RSF on October 27, when the movement overran the SAF’s 6th Infantry Division and elements of the Sudan Liberation Movement-MM led by Darfur Governor Minni Arko Minawi (now resident in Port Sudan). Taking al-Fashir frees up RSF forces for the ongoing battle for neighboring Kordofan region and solidifies its control of Darfur (Mada Masr, July 11).

Minni Arko Minawi, Governor of Darfur and Leader of the SLA-MM

The entry of RSF forces was followed by massacres largely targeting the non-Arab population of the city that have killed at least 1500 people, including 460 patients and health workers at the Saudi Maternity Hospital (Al-Jazeera, October 30). According to the Sudan Doctors’ Network, “Hospitals in El Fasher have been transformed into human slaughterhouses” (Radio Dabanga, October 30). The atrocities appear to exceed even the dark episodes that followed the taking of al-Fashir after a siege by Mahdist forces in 1883. RSF commander Muhammad Hamdan Daglo “Hemetti” acknowledged he had “observed abuses occurring in al-Fashir” and pledged to hold RSF personnel accountable for their crimes (Sudan Tribune, October 29).

During the siege RSF constructed 68 km of 3-meter-tall sand berms alongside 3-meter-deep ditches as wide as five meters around al-Fashir to prevent escape from the siege (Radio Dabanga, September 30; Mada Masr, September 5). [1] People fleeing al-Fashir along the so-called “Road of Death” to nearby cholera-stricken Tawila were routinely deprived of all their possessions before being killed or raped as suspected supporters of the SAF. Others were forced to provide blood for wounded RSF fighters; many of these died soon after (Sudan Tribune, September 6). Those remaining in al-Fashir were reduced to eating leaves or a diminishing supply of animal feed as supplies of food, medicine and other aid were interrupted by the RSF’s siege lines (Al-Jazeera, September 4).

Palace of Sultan ‘Ali Dinar, al-Fashir (TIKA)

Earlier this year, the RSF, having already looted the Sudan National Museum in Khartoum, bombed the historical al-Fashir palace of Fur Sultan ‘Ali Dinar (1898-1916), a revered national symbol of anti-colonial resistance, but one who campaigned constantly against the western Arab tribes that now dominate the RSF (Radio Dabanga, January 22; Darfur Network for Human Rights, January 17).

South of al-Fashir, there are indications that the RSF has turned the airbase at Nyala into a base for Iranian and Chinese-designed drones capable of striking any target within Sudan (Sudan Tribune, September 29). The RSF has also made major improvements in its air-defense systems through the use of Wagner Group-supplied surface-to-air missiles capable of downing the SAF’s Turkish-made Bayraktar Akinci high-altitude, long-endurance drones, once expected to be a game-changing weapon in the struggle to relieve al-Fashir (Military Africa, September 28).

The Tasis State

A political charter to form a parallel “transitional peace government” was signed in February by the RSF, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement – North (SPLM-N) and other armed groups (the “Tasis Alliance”) operating in western Sudan (al-Jazeera, July 28). The new state was declared on July 26 as the “Government of Peace and Unity,” but is more commonly known as “the Tasis State.” Though the new state insists it represents all parts of Sudan, in reality it can only govern those regions currently controlled in whole or part by the RSF and the SPLM-N (Darfur, parts of Kordofan and parts of Blue Nile State). For now, the Tasis capital is in Nyala (southern Darfur), but will likely be shifted to al-Fashir.

The Tasis (“Founding”) Alliance is formed from 24 armed and civil groups, including the RSF, the SPLM-N, the Beja Congress of eastern Sudan, the Rasha’ida Arab “Free Lions” of eastern Sudan, and factions of the National Umma Party (UP), Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and the largely Zaghawa Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) (Ash Sharq al-Awsat, March 4; Sudan Tribune, January 22). To maintain a façade of ruling all Sudan, Tasis has appointed regional governors for Khartoum and the Eastern region, despite the RSF currently having no presence in these areas (Sudan Tribune, July 26; Arab Weekly, July 28).

The head of the presidential council is RSF leader Muhammad Hamdan Daglo “Hemetti”; his deputy is SPLM-N leader ‘Abd al-Aziz Hilu (see MLM, June 2012). Both attended the swearing in of the presidential council in Nyala on August 30; the ceremony site was bombed several hours later by the SAF (Mada Masr, September 5).

Tasis Prime Minister Muhammad Hassan al-Ta’aishi

As prime minister, the Darfur Arabs controlling the RSF have appointed Muhammad Hassan al-Ta’aishi, a known ally of Hemetti. The appointment has significant symbolic value with reference to the rivalry between the Baqqara (cattle-herding) Arabs of Darfur and the riverain Arabs of northern Sudan in the time of the Mahdist State (1885-1898), when the northern Arab relatives of the Mahdi, the ashraf, were repressed by the Mahdi’s successor, Khalifa ‘Abd Allahi, a member of Darfur’s Ta’aisha tribe. Sudan’s northern Arab minority has dominated Sudan since independence in 1956, and the appointment of a Ta’aishi as prime minister is a political signal understood by all Sudanese.

The RSF justifies its declaration of a new state by saying it is necessitated by an urgent need for identity documents, currency, security, medicine, healthcare and education identity documents (Mada Masr, August 16). One purpose of establishing the rival state is to establish legitimacy in talks hosted by outside parties such as the Quartet – the US, UK, UAE and Saudi Arabia (better known as “the Quad”). For now, only the UAE recognizes the RSF as a de facto authority (Mada Masr, September 28). Sudan’s government has complained to the UN about the UAE’s alleged involvement in supplying arms, logistical support and Colombian mercenaries to the RSF (AIS Special Report, June 13; Mada Masr, September 14).

The UN Security Council rejected the declaration of a rival state in Sudan, calling it “a direct threat to Sudan’s territorial integrity” (UN News, August 13). It has also been opposed by many Arab states, including Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Qatar and Saudi Arabia (New Arab, March 6). Other opposition comes from the US and the African Union (AU), which suspended Sudan’s membership in 2021. Besides the UAE, supporters include Khalifa Haftar’s eastern Libya, Chad, Kenya, South Sudan and the Central African Republic.

THE SAF/TSC Government

The Port Sudan-based SAF/Transitional Sovereignty Council (TSC) government is making its own bid for legitimacy in the face of what it regards as exclusion from international peace efforts supported by the Quad, the UN and the AU. Declaring it will not negotiate without a declaration of its legitimacy, the SAF/TSC has also rejected all efforts to place the RSF on an equal footing and insists only a military resolution can bring peace to Sudan (Mada Masr, September 20).

Finance Minister and JEM leader Dr. Jibril Ibrahim (Akhbar al-Sudan/Facebook)

On May 19, Kamil al-Tayib Idris, with doctorates in international relations and international law, was appointed Sudan’s first civilian prime minister since 2022 by General ‘Abd al-Fatah al-Burhan, head of the SAF and chair of the TSC. Shortly afterward, the new PM tried to expel two powerful former rebel leaders from the TSC cabinet, JEM’s Dr. Jibril Ibrahim (minister of finance) and Darfur governor Minni Arko Minawi, but was quickly overruled by al- Burhan, who doubtless has no desire to see these leaders and their valuable troops depart the SAF-led coalition (Al-Jazeera, July 23). Many former rebel leaders and their subordinates gained their positions as TSC ministers under the terms of the 2020 Juba peace agreement (International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, April 21, 2021).

Traditional Parties Divided

The National Umma Party (NUP) is the political arm of Sudan’s neo-Mahdist movement and has been a strong, western-based political force in Sudan since independence under the leadership of various descendants of its founder ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Mahdi, the posthumous son of Muhammad Ahmad ibn ‘Abd Allah, “the Mahdi” (1843-1885). The party is currently divided, with a faction led by acting head Muhammad ‘Abd Allah al-Douma backing the Port Sudan SAF/TSC government while a faction led by Fadlallah Burma Nasir supports the RSF and the creation of a parallel Sudanese state (Sudan Tribune, July 8). Fadlallah has accepted an appointment to be speaker of the Tasis government’s legislative council.

Khatmiyya Leader Muhammad ‘Uthman al-Mirghani

The NUP’s historical rival is the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), led by Sayyid Muhammad ‘Uthman al-Mirghani, the 89-year-old leader of the historically pro-Egyptian Khatmiyya Sufi order and descendant of the order’s founder, ‘Ali al-Mirghani (1873-1968). The leadership of the DUP is in turmoil after decrees allegedly issued by Sayyid al-Mirghani on June 24 replaced the party leader’s son, Ja’afar al-Sadiq, as deputy leader with Ahmad Sa’ad Omar, a loyalist of deposed president Omar al-Bashir. Many DUP leaders allege the maneuver was the work of another of al-Mirghani’s sons, ‘Abd Allah al-Mahjub, who was taking advantage of the elderly Sufi leader, a resident of Cairo who is known for his publicly expressed support for the SAF but has little other political involvement (Sudan Tribune, June 25; Altaghyeer.info, July 8, 2024).

A faction under Ibrahim al-Mirghani, another descendant of Khatmiyya founder ‘Ali al-Mirghani, has come out in support of the RSF and the Tasis alliance. A DUP spokesman declared in February that “the presence of Ibrahim Ahmed Al-Mirghani does not represent the party in any way, and he only represents himself and the constituencies that entrusted him with the mission” (SUNA, February 20).

The Islamists Return

Much like the RSF-led Tasis coalition, the “official” SAF/TSC government and its armed supporters also constitute a tenuous alliance. Complicating its own search for legitimacy is the presence within the coalition of many Islamists, including veterans of the discredited military-Islamist government of Omar al-Bashir, who was deposed in 2019 and is currently wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on charges of war crimes, torture and genocide. Islamist militias under SAF command have played a major role in the fighting, most notably the Bara’a bin Malik Brigade, tied to the Islamist National Congress Party (NCP).

Commander of the Bara’a Bin Malik Brigade, al-Misbah Abu Zaid Talha (Sudan Tribune)

The NCP, which ruled Sudan from 1998 to 2019, is currently led by Ahmad Harun (also wanted by the ICC on charges of war crimes and genocide in Darfur). Harun believes Western political models are inappropriate for Sudan and that there must be a political role for the army, but insists the Islamists will wait to seek power via the ballot box after the war’s conclusion  (Sudan Tribune, July 25; Arab Weekly, July 26).

The RSF is strongly opposed to a political return by the Islamists, blaming them for initiating the current conflict (Sudan Tribune, July 25). Tasis prime minister Muhammad Hassan al-Ta’aishi explained in an interview that General al-Burhan has “benefited from the Islamists’ infiltration of the military establishment” and that he “became the general who served the Islamists most after the [2019] revolution” (Assayha, October 16). The Tasis alliance has declared they will dissolve all Islamist militias affiliated with the NCP after they take control of Sudan (Ash Sharq al-Awsat, March 4).

Conclusion

The problem is that there are not two groups fighting for power in Sudan, but many, who have flocked to one or the other of the major coalitions (RSF and SAF) to further their own interests, even when that has meant splitting existing movements. In turn, the leaders of the major coalitions have become beholden to unreliable partners who have a track record of opportunism. In this situation, a victory by either side may mark not the end of the conflict, but only the starting point of a new one.

Most international support (however unenthusiastic) tends to line up behind the SAF/TSC as the default successor to the line of recognized Sudanese governments. However, the civilian leaders in the TSC are in thrall to the military members of the TSC, particularly TSC chairman General al-Burhan. While many civilian members reject a return to the political Islamism of the era of President Omar al-Bashir, they must contend with the fact that the northern Arab generals of the SAF are precisely those that survived the frequent purges of non-Islamist officers during the Bashir regime.

The RSF’s new Tasis State is not without its own international support, but these backers remain focused on what can be gained by supporting a paramilitary (led by Darfur Arabs) that has adopted a veneer of statehood to cloak the fact it is manifestly incapable of running anything resembling a 21st century administration with any other objective than the personal enrichment of its leadership. The inability of both RSF and SAF commanders to envision the possibility of a Sudanese nation led by a member of Sudan’s non-Arab majority guarantees further rounds of combat focused on the pursuit of ethnic-based power sharing.

On the battlefield, ongoing atrocities by both the SAF and the RSF mean there is little to choose between them in a humanitarian sense. Beyond the deliberate destruction of national infrastructure (much of which is the now ruined and irreplaceable legacy of the brief days of oil wealth before the separation of South Sudan), a recent UN report entitled “A War of Atrocities” found both side guilty of adopting a brutal approach to achieving their attainment of power: “Both sides have deliberately targeted civilians through attacks, summary executions, arbitrary detention, torture, and inhuman treatment in detention facilities, including denial of food, sanitation, and medical care. These are not accidental tragedies but deliberate strategies amounting to war crimes” (UN Human Rights Council, September 5). Ultimately, the division of Sudan into two dysfunctional states rather than one cannot offer the Sudanese people the prospect of stability or prosperity.

Note

  1. “Special Report: No Safe Haven: Bombardment of Abu Shouk IDP Camp and El-Fasher’s Increasing Berm Encirclement,” September 11, 2025, https://files-profile.medicine.yale.edu/documents/e3d32307-89f9-4573-8c87-fc7d15239a9f

 

Wild Boars and Black Tigers: The French Commandos of North Vietnam, 1951-54

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Andrew McGregor

AIS Military History

October 12, 2025

Sampans glide silently in the darkness over an inland waterway in north Vietnam’s Red River delta. Five Frenchmen and 120 Vietnamese commandos are on their way to make a deep behind-the-lines raid on Ho Chi Minh’s communist Viet Minh guerrillas. Their mission involves intelligence collection, seizing prisoners for interrogation and sowing confusion behind enemy lines. Among these nocturnal predators are many former Viet Minh prisoners; the lone French officer and his NCOs operate in the knowledge they may be killed by their own men at any time. This is life in the “Commandos of North Vietnam” (1951-54), a French precursor to the American Green Berets.

When General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny became commander-in-chief of the French Far East Expeditionary Corps in December 1950, French forces had been struggling for nearly six years to re-establish control over the Indochina colonies. Japanese forces destroyed the French occupation army in 1945, leaving a post-war power void exploited by Ho Chi Minh’s communist Viet Minh. The arrival of de Lattre, a legendary French soldier known to his men as “King Jean,” reinvigorates the badly demoralized Expeditionary Corps.

De Lattre, realizing the futility of following the old rules of combat, clears out incompetent officers and introduces new ideas, weapons and tactics, including a plan to create a series of new commando groups for use in northern Vietnam (“Tonkin”). These units, composed almost entirely of Vietnamese troops with a few French officers or NCOs in command, take the war to the Viet Minh using their own methods and intimate knowledge of the terrain. It is a war of no quarter, fought almost exclusively at night by men disguised as the enemy, men with a special gift for killing in the dark.

Origins

Even before the liberation of Paris, Free French leader General Charles de Gaulle was planning to re-establish French control of the Indochina colonies of Laos, Cambodia and the three regions of Vietnam – Cochin China in the south, the central region of Annam and the northern region of Tonkin. In 1944, the first Free French commando groups, officially the Corps Léger d’Intervention (C.L.I.), but better known as Gaurs (wild buffalo), are dropped into Japanese-occupied Laos. Torture is inevitable if captured and cyanide pills are regular issue. [1] Some of the commandos are highly trained veterans of the Free French companies of the British Special Air Service (SAS) and continue to wear the regiment’s green berets.

On March 9, 1945, the Japanese Army depose the French Vichy government in Indochina, slaughtering entire garrisons in surprise attacks. Two French Gaur groups are dropped into Tonkin by British planes to assist the fighting withdrawal to China of a column of starving and bloodied French colonial troops. Few of the Gaurs survive, most dying in suicidal attempts to delay the Japanese.

These early commandos are reliant on British training, transport and equipment, as the American Office of Strategic Services (OSS – predecessor to the CIA) initially supports Ho Chi Minh’s nationalist guerrillas over the French. This preference is in line with Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s vision of a post-war world where national self-determination will replace European imperialism.

Battle of the Day River

After years of bitter fighting in Vietnam’s jungles and mountains, it is the performance of mixed groups of French and Vietnamese commandos at the Battle of the Day River (May 28-June 18, 1951) that convinces General de Lattre to make the commandos a formal part of the French Expeditionary Corps.

The Limestone Crags at Ninh Binh

When the Viet Minh’s 320th Division launches an offensive along the Day River, they are opposed by small French units holding two limestone crags at Ninh Binh. One of the peaks is held by “King Jean’s” son, Bernard de Lattre, who is following his father’s order to hold the French position at all costs. A mostly Vietnamese commando led by a massive young French NCO, Roger Vandenberghe, is called upon to reinforce the young lieutenant by climbing the crag under heavy fire. Machine-gun fire sends climbers plummeting down the cliff, and eventually finds Vandenberghe. Wounded, he signals his second-in-command, Sergeant Tran Dinh Vy, to finish the assault. The slight but formidable sergeant is a former seminarian who has become a master of guerrilla tactics.

During the attack, the bleeding Vandenberghe retrieves the body of his friend, Bernard, a victim of Viet mortar fire. The recovery ingratiates Vandenberghe to General de Lattre, who is deeply disturbed by the loss of his only child. [2] From this point, de Lattre acts as a patron to Vandenberghe, whose savage way of war is bringing him close to dismissal by French commanders alarmed by his methods. “King Jean,” who will declare Vandenberghe “the greatest soldier in Indochina,” authorizes the creation of formal French Army commando units on July 2, 1951.

Elsewhere at Ninh Binh, two battalions of Viet Minh, the lead elements of Giap’s offensive, run into a naval commando unit on May 28, 1951, the 76-man Commando François led by Lieutenant Albert Labbens. Cornered in an abandoned church, the commandos hold off an overwhelming communist force for 24 hours, allowing the French to rush forces to the area and stop the offensive. The end of Commando François comes when 29 mostly wounded survivors make a sally from the church after running out of ammunition. To honor their sacrifice, the commando was never reconstituted. [3]

The Battle of the Day River ends three weeks later as a disaster for Giap, who leaves 12,000 dead behind. It is a tactical lesson for the communist general, but cements the reputation of the French commandos.

Training

Responsibility for organizing the commandos is handed to Louis Fourcade, commander of the 1st Battalion of Colonial Paratroopers. Fourcade spent WWII as an officer in the Vichy colonial army in Indochina, with secret contacts to Free French agents working across the border in China. He was involved in the desperate fighting against the Japanese in the last months of the war.

Louis Fourcade

The new commando units normally include 120 Vietnamese under a European officer or, more commonly, a senior NCO, aided by four other NCOs and at least one European radio operator. Viet Minh prisoners are given the chance to avoid heavy labor by volunteering to join the new commando groups. This is a highly dangerous practice; while it brings on board men who are intimately familiar with the enemy and his methods, it also hands arms to men who might wait months before suddenly turning on their leaders. Sleeping becomes as precarious for the commando leaders as a fire-fight with the enemy. To let one’s guard down for a minute is to invite death.

Yvan Tommasi

Training is carried out at the Vat Chay commando school by SAS veteran Captain Michel Legrand. Later training of the commandos is undertaken by one of the hardest men in the French Army – Yvan Tommasi, an Algerian-born officer of the Colonial Paratroops and a Free French veteran of fighting in Africa and Europe. In 1950, he loses his right hand while seizing a bomb from the hands of a trainee who had mistakenly set it to explode. Rather than retire, Tommasi continues to jump and is appointed trainer of the commandos in February 1952. Captured leading a raid in January 1953, Tommasi spends six months in a Viet Minh prison camp. There, he is singled out by French communist and turncoat Georges Boudarel, who tries to break him by forcing him to dig all the graves for the camp with his left arm and the stump of the right. Tommasi is kept busy; 85% of the prisoners in Camp 113 die from torture and mistreatment while being forced to sing the praises of Ho Chi Minh. [4] Tommasi survives and continues to serve in the colonial paratroops in Africa until 1966. [5] Amazingly, the unrepentant Boudarel is hired as a professor by a Paris university after the war.

The commandos are taught to fight at night. As Captain Delayen of Commando 13 recalled:

After having overcome the visceral fear of the night, and the completion of special training requiring the greatest discipline, the [Vietnamese] auxiliaries were convinced that, lightly armed as they were, only night action could allow them to dominate an adversary unaccustomed to not be the only ones operating at night. [6]

Internal cohesion is achieved by recovering commando families living in Viet Minh-occupied zones, building schools, pagodas and married quarters beside the commando base, and forming the atmosphere of “a big family” through the cultivation of vegetables and the raising of chickens and pigs.

Operations

The commandos do not perform normal military duties such as routine patrols or guarding military posts. When necessary, they operate in conjunction with regular troops on larger military operations. [7] The commandos use weapons supplied by the English and Chinese weapons captured from the Viets, including Thompson machine-guns and WWII-era Sten guns. Grenade launchers and small 50- or 60-mm mortars complete the light armament of these highly mobile units. Many wear the black cotton uniform of the Viet Minh, complete with sneakers, palm helmets and a Red Star insignia.

To gather intelligence, the commandos venture deep into enemy territory to observe movements, take prisoners and disrupt communist political networks. Attendees at Viet Minh meetings live in fear of French commandos bursting in, firing their Thompson machine-guns from the waist. The commandos are taught to aim at the feet of their targets in close combat, as the Thompsons tend to jump up when fired.

In his memoir, Sergeant Bernard Gaudin of 25 Commando describes a night ambush during a deep raid on the Viet Minh. Ambushes mean hours of silent misery, uniforms soaked by an endless drizzle. Nerves are on a razor edge as eyes strain to detect movement in the inky darkness. The torment of mosquitoes is unrelenting but must be endured noiselessly:

Canh, my faithful corporal, whispers in my ear: “Chief, there are a lot of Viets.” (…) Here we go, all the Commandos who are waiting for this break loose. We can finally cough, yell – it’s recommended. The bursts and explosions of grenades tear the night apart. Immediately, there is a pack of Viets on the mat. We hear them shouting orders to try a maneuver but we shoot at everything that moves. [8]

With prisoners taken and the Viet Minh column destroyed, Gaudin leads his men back by a different route. The waiting Viet Minh begin to rain down grenades as they cross a rice paddy. Two of his men are killed before fire rakes the Commando from sharpshooters in the trees. A Dinassaut (armored landing craft) makes a welcome appearance on the river and lays down heavy fire until the shooting stops. The Commando returns to camp, where a blazing fire enables the start of “Operation Leech,” as the men burn off blood-engorged parasites with a cigarette, dropping them to sizzle in the flames. [9] Gaudin’s raid yields a treasure-trove of intelligence documents, including the cipher to the Viet Minh code. At other times, it is the commandos who are the victims; when Commando 34 operates in Laos in support of the besieged French garrison at Dien Bien Phu, Sergent-Chef Müller leads it into a devastating ambush, losing 68 of its 107 men, including Müller.

Dinassaut with a Mixed French/Viet Crew

The Dinassaut are surplus American shallow-draft LCMs (Landing Craft Mechanized), modified to bring heavy firepower to support infantry and commando operations in the shallow waterways of the Red River Delta. For this, the Dinassaut deploy heavy machine guns, 81mm mortars and even tank turrets welded onto the crafts. They save more than one commando group and are effective enough to serve as a model for later American river operations in the south.

The physical challenges alone are daunting on operations and exacerbated by a shortage of medicines and medical personnel. In the infernal heat, unbearable prickly heat is enough to drive a man mad. Clothing is little better than a curse; damp clothes and web gear rubbing on skin creates raw patches that quickly become infected before the flesh begins to rot. Boils, warts and the festering lumps provided by stinging and biting insects complete the assault on the skin. Internally, the body is host to large worms that have a disconcerting habit of popping out through the mouth as well as the anus; externally, the body sustains legions of leeches, mindless and ubiquitous creatures devoted to bleeding a man dry. Eye diseases that deprive a man of sight are rife; malaria and a multitude of tropical ailments make delirious fever an almost normal condition. Amoebic dysentery, endemic in the polluted rice paddies and streams that double as toilets for the locals, provides a slow and demoralizing death.

Despite these challenges, it is necessary for the leaders of the commandos to continually demonstrate physical and mental strength or risk losing the men under them. For officers of the French regular army, this dirty, stressful and highly dangerous work is commonly viewed as more likely to lead to an early death than promotion. Leadership roles are thus opened to audacious NCOs who may not have graduated the French St. Cyr military academy, but are capable of innovation, independent action and, most of all, killing Viet Minh. Contrary to expectations, the experience of the surviving commando leaders propels them rapidly through the ranks after the French withdrawal from Indochina. Men who understood the “new warfare” developed in Indochina would be needed in Algeria.

In response to the pressure of the commandos, the ever-adaptive Viet Minh create a counter-commando force, the Dich Van. This covert unit is assigned the task of infiltrating native troop formations aligned with the French Expeditionary Corps, often by intimidating the families of pro-French fighters. [10]  Dich Van propaganda teams recruit Foreign Legion deserters to persuade French Expeditionary Corps prisoners in French, German and other European languages to adopt Marxist ideology and take up arms against their former comrades.

The Wild Boar

Several French commanders achieve fame in this highly unconventional form of fighting, one fought with knives as much as sub-machine guns. One of these is a solid, thick-set Corsican lieutenant, Charles Alphonse Rusconi. For his ferocious fighting style, the Corsican is known as Le Sanglier, “the wild boar.”

Fanion of Commando 24

Rusconi begins his military career in 1936 by joining the Colonial Army’s 10th Regiment of Senegalese Tirailleurs (riflemen). He leads several daring commando raids behind German lines in 1940 before being wounded and captured. Escaping only two months later, he joins the French forces in Indochina in 1948, forming Commando 24 from Viet Minh prisoners and Black Colonial Army troops from Mali. The latter, mostly large men, say their commander is “small, but cunning.” Through unrelenting attacks that shatter Viet Minh morale, his group forces a significant decline in communist activity in his zone of operations.

The 33-year-old Rusconi, survivor of four wounds, is killed in February 1952 when one of his commandos, a former Viet Minh officer influenced by the Dich Van, opens a way into the camp for a company of Viet Minh. Rusconi and most of his command fall in vicious hand-to-hand fighting, knives, fists and boots flailing to the last.

The Black Tigers

Childhood for Roger Vandenberghe and his brother Albert is extremely difficult. Born in a Paris slum, their father dies from tuberculosis in 1939. Their mother, a Spanish Jew, is sent by Vichy authorities to a Nazi death camp. With little education, the boys join the French Resistance as mere teenagers, followed by service as commandos in General de Lattre’s First French Army in Alsace and Germany.  After the war, Vandenberghe and his brother arrive in Vietnam as part of the 6th Colonial Infantry regiment. Roger is immediately taken with the country, a place far different from the crowded tenements of Paris. Already decorated with the Croix de Guerre for his Resistance work, Vandenberghe quickly makes sergeant in command of a unit of Vietnamese auxiliaries that becomes Commando 24, “The Black Tigers.”

Roger Vanderberghe

Vandenberghe’s nemesis in Vietnam is Chapuis, a former French paratrooper who deserted to the communists. In June 1948, Chapuis kills Vandenberghe’s younger brother, his only family in the world. The deserter is captured by Vandenberghe in 1951 and sent to the French post at Nam Dinh, where he escapes and returns to the Viet Minh.

Vandenberghe’s most famous exploit comes when one of his turned commandos reveals the location of a Viet Minh command post. Vandenberghe allows himself to be bound as a prisoner and carried along by his men in Viet Minh uniform, passing through checkpoints by insisting they are going to collect the reward on Vandenberghe’s head.  Once inside the command post, Vandenberghe is released; he and his men slaughter everyone there, seizing a treasure trove of documents and weapons. [11]

Vanderberghe Meets an Astonished General De Lattre at Phu Ly

This fearsome NCO has little use for the officers of the French army, but is impressed by the leadership of General De Lattre, his former commander in France. He leads his men 12 miles through enemy territory to see the general at a gathering in Phu Ly. The general is astonished to see this towering European in a Viet Minh uniform and helmet. Vandenberghe explains his appearance as necessary while operating almost exclusively behind enemy lines. De Lattre is taken by this odd but unforgettable warrior, remarking a few days later: “It’s a bit as if a tiger, in addition to its fangs and claws, received a hunting license…” [12]

The French commandos fight brutal, no-quarter battles in a tropical darkness where the normal conventions of war hold no sway. Even in these conditions, Vandenberghe stands out for waging a vicious and pitiless war using methods the French command find disturbing. He drives his men hard; complaints are met with a reminder that, without him, his turncoat troops “would be in jail or eaten by maggots.” [13] Desertions are frequent and Vandenberghe is shot in the back by one of his own men in 1949. After returning from medical treatment in France he becomes even more unrestrained, his NCOs struggling to keep him in check, especially in his dealings with the civilian population.  Vandenberghe pays little heed to the criticism of his methods by French officers, insisting that war was about killing, so they were best to leave him to it. [14]

Vanderberghe and Rusconi in Hanoi, February 7, 1952

Paratrooper Phillipe de Pirey recalled a parade held in honor of General de Lattre that featured the Vandenberghe and Rusconi commandos, “most striking” in Viet Minh-style black shorts and shirts, topped with Latanier (palm) helmets with red stars on a yellow background. Beside their Sten-guns with fifty round magazines, numerous knives and grenades hung from their belts. Once onlookers managed to overcome the shock of witnessing these former Viet Minh warriors parading in the streets of Hanoi in the uniforms of the enemy, it was possible for de Pirey to admit “the men in these units looked rather splendid.” [15]

Tran Dinh Vy – Tiger and Legionnaire

On January 6, 1952, at a time when most of Commando 24 is on leave, Vietnamese sentries who had managed to infiltrate the unit allow a Viet Minh team that may include the deserter Chapuis to enter the camp. The assassins move silently and Vandenberghe is butchered in his sleep by a former Viet Minh officer under his command. Ten others are killed; the few wounded who survive include Sergeant Tran Dinh Vy, who goes on to serve in the army of South Vietnam.  Arriving in France after the collapse of South Vietnam in 1975, this exceptional soldier joins the French Foreign Legion, attaining the rank of colonel.

Commando 24 in Viet Minh Uniforms

Wounded seven times by bullets, grenades and mines before his death, Vandenberghe becomes the most highly decorated French NCO of the 20th century. An obituary in a leading Paris newspaper notes that the war enabled Vandenberghe to “find in the combats of the jungle the blossoming of his barbaric personality.” [16] Five days after Vandenberghe’s death, General de Lattre dies of cancer in Paris and is laid to rest alongside his son, Bernard, marking the end of the short but eventful relationship between the king, his prince and the tiger who served them.

End of the North Vietnam Commandos

After the fall of Dien Bien Phu in May 1954, the French command decides to evacuate the southern half of the Red River Delta. Hundreds of Vietnamese begin to desert the French forces. Two sections of Commando 35 murder their French commander, Lieutenant Nedelec, and two French NCOs before joining the enemy in July 1954. [17]

Général Salan and the Commando Yatagan in Algeria

With the French war over, the native remnants of the commando groups assemble at Haiphong and are sent to South Vietnam to form the 1st Battalion de Marche des Commandos (BMC). Their French officers and NCOs find themselves in demand and are sent to Algeria to continue French experiments in counter-insurgency. Commando 13’s Captain Jean-Louis Delayen forms the Yatagan Commando in Algeria, a French-led unit of Algerian Muslims operating along the lines established by the North Vietnam commandos. A second-generation member of the French colonial infantry, Delayen finishes his career in 1978 as one of the most decorated soldiers in the French army.

Tomb of Roger Vanderberghe, Pau, France (Joel Herbez)

Vandenberghe’s remains are repatriated to France from the Nam Dinh cemetery in 1989, where they are interred in a monument honoring the “Black Tiger” at the National NCO Academy in Pau.

By the end of the war in 1954, Viet Minh losses to the Nord Viet-Nam commandos include 3,664 dead, 481 wounded and 4,649 taken prisoner. European commando losses include 73 dead, 25 wounded and 6 missing. Losses of Vietnamese commandos in French service appear not to have been recorded but could only be described as substantial. [18]

Louis Fourcade, who had organized the commandos, honors them after the war: “Thanks to their ardor, their contempt for danger, the initiative of their leaders, the courage and undeniable devotion of their men, the North Vietnam commandos acquired and deserved their reputation of being always into the breach.” [19]

NOTES

 [1] Jean le Morillon, p.134.

[2] Bernard Fall, p. 45.

[3] Groizeleau.

[4] Yves Beigbeder, p. 73.

[5] Denizot.

[6] Captain Delayen (later General Delayen), quoted in Pissardy, p.251.

[7] LeBreton.

[8] Gaudin, Reprinted in Pissardy, p.266.

[9] Ibid.

[10] Colonel Michel Reeb.

[11] LeBreton.

[12] Forum La Guerre d’Indochine.

[13] Bergot, 1997.

[14] Favrel, 1952.

[15]  De Pirey, p.159.

[16] Ibid.

[17] Pissardy, p.51.

[18] LeBreton

[19] Reeb

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Beigbeder, Yves: Judging War Crimes and Torture: French Justice and International Criminal Tribunals and Commissions,  Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2006.

Bergot, Erwan: Commando Vandenberghe, Pygmalion, Paris, 1997.

Denizot, Jean-Jacques: L’épopée des trois Capitaines. Jean Claveranne – Henri Morin – Yvan Tommasi. Trois vies, un destin, 2000, https://www.monsieur-legionnaire.org/images/epopee-des-trois-capitaines.pdf

Fall, Bernard: Street Without Joy, Pall Mall Press, London, 1961.

Favrel, Charles: “La Mort d’un Baroudeur,” Le Monde, January 9, 1952, https://www.lemonde.fr/archives/article/1952/01/09/la-mort-d-un-baroudeur_1993178_1819218.html

Forum La Guerre d’Indochine: “L’Adjutant-Chef Roger Vandenberghe,” April 9, 2009, https://laguerreenindochine.forumactif.org/t541p1-l-adjudant-chef-roger-vandenberghe

Gaudin, Bernard, Commando 25, Paris, 1990.

Groizeleau, Vincent: “Un ancien du commando François arrive en P-51 sur la BAN d’Hyères,”
Mer et Marine, June 16, 2014, https://www-meretmarine-com.translate.goog/fr/defense/un-ancien-du-commando-francois-arrive-en-p-51-sur-la-ban-d-hyeres?_x_tr_sl=fr&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=op,sc

Kennedy, Paul J.: Dinassaut Operations in Indochina: 1946-1954, Unpublished MA Thesis, Marine Corps Command and Staff College, Quantico VA, 2001.

LeBreton, A.: “Commandos Nord Vietnam,” Versailles, July 31, 2007, http://archive.wikiwix.com/cache/index2.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.acuf.fr%2FArticle%2FCommandos%2520Nord%2520Vietnam.htm

Le Morillon, Jean: Un Breton en Indochine, Paris, 2000.

de Pirey, Philippe, Operation Waste, Arco, London, 1954.

Pissardy, Jean-Pierre: Commandos Nord-Vietnam, 1951-1954, Indo Éditions, Paris, 1999.

Reeb, Colonel Michel: “Commando Nord Viet-Nam,” La Charte, December 2003.

 

Russian Military Presence in Mali Contributes to State Collapse

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Andrew McGregor

Eurasia Daily Monitor, 22(129), Washington DC

September 30, 2025

Executive Summary:

  • The presence of Russian military personnel in Mali has failed to prevent the expansion of the jihadist insurgency into the once-safe central and western regions of the country.
  • Fissures have erupted in Mali’s ruling military junta over issues related to operational cooperation with Russian military personnel who tend to operate independently of Mali’s command structure and are accused of human-rights abuses.
  • Russian forces are unhappy with difficulties related to their entry into Mali’s lucrative minerals sector and the arrival of Turkish military contractors assigned to train the president’s security staff.

Four years into the Russian military deployment that began with the arrival of Wagner personnel, Mali has become less secure and the jihadists have grown stronger, more numerous, wider ranging, and more daring attacks on urban centers and military bases (see EDM, September 6, 2023, March 12, 2024; see Terrorism Monitor, June 26, 2020, December 11, 2024). Three months after Wagner withdrew in June and Russia’s Africa Corps began its Malian deployment, the Russian military presence is not only failing to quell Mali’s 13-year-old Islamist and separatist insurgency, but is now adding to Mali’s political turmoil (see EDM, July 9). Russian forces have both failed to retake the jihadist homeland in northern Mali and to prevent a large-scale infiltration of Islamist gunmen into the once-safe central and western regions of the country. The inability of foreign forces, such as the recently expelled French military, to repress the insurgency is beginning to create fissures in Mali’s five-year-old military junta.

JNIM celebrate after the ambush of a Russian convoy near Ténenkou, August 1, 2025

Recently, the al-Qaeda-affiliated Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wa’l-Muslimin (JNIM) movement scored a victory over Forces Armées Maliennes (FAMa) and the allied Russian Africa Corps when it ambushed a Russian convoy near Ténenkou in the central Malian region of Mopti on August 1. An estimated 14 Russians and over 35 Malian soldiers died (France24, August 13). The bodies of three white combatants were shown in the video, including one wounded soldier who was executed with a shot to the head. A second video showed JNIM fighters rummaging through a damaged Russian Ural-4320 truck (X/@Permafr95699535, August 1). The scene was reminiscent of the Wagner/FAMa defeat at Tinzawatène at the hands of JNIM and Tuareg separatists of the Cadre stratégique pour la défense du peuple de l’Azawad (CSP-DPA) on July 25, 2024 (see EDM, September 11, 2024).

JNIM fighters inspect damaged Russian truck at Ténenkou

The region around Ténenkou is dominated by the Fulani, cattle-herding Muslims whose regular clashes with farming communities have led to reprisals by government forces and local militias. This leads to recruitment by Fulani-dominated jihadist groups such as the al-Qaeda-aligned Katiba Macina (MLF) (CTC, February 2017). Fulani fighters from the Katiba Macina were at the forefront of a September 17, 2024, raid on Russian and Malian military personnel in Mali’s capital, Bamako (see EDM, October 9, 2024). MLF leader Amadou Koufa stated that the raid was a response to civilian massacres by FAMa and their Russian allies (X/SaladinAlDronni, September 17, 2024).

The Russian military presence has failed to prevent the expansion of jihadist operations into parts of Mali that were previously unaffected by such. JNIM’s June to September offensive in western Mali climaxed with the September 3 announcement of a JNIM blockade of imports from neighboring Senegal and Mauritania (Africa Report, September 7). The blockade of the Kayes and Nioro regions is intended to prevent the import of fuel and other goods to landlocked Mali and Bamako, where fuel is already in short supply, affecting both military and commercial flights (Anadolu Ajansı, July 10). Mali’s regime responded with airstrikes in Kayes on September 8 after jihadists stopped and emptied fuel tankers from Senegal (TRT Global, September 8).

The regime’s inability to restore security to Mali, even with the aid of Russian troops, has created an atmosphere of distrust in the highest levels of the military. An unauthorized early August meeting of senior officers to discuss issues related to cooperation with the Russian Africa Corps led to a wave of arrests of front-line officers and other ranks that began on August 10 and continued for days. At least 55 soldiers were arrested, including two popular generals, on charges they were preparing a coup against the junta with the help of “foreign states” (Africa News, August 11; Al-Jazeera, August 15; L’Essor, August 19).

General Sadio Camara meets with Russian defense officials in Moscow, including Yunus-Bek Yevkurov (left) (Russian Defense Ministry)

One junta leader who escaped arrest was Minister of Defense and Veterans Affairs Lieutenant General Sadio Camara, the individual responsible for arranging the arrival of Russian contractors in Mali. Camara has acted as the point man for the junta’s dealings with both the Wagner Group and its successor, the Africa Corps, which operates under the direction of Russia’s Ministry of Defense. Camara, however, has come under suspicion after the mass arrests of suspect officers, most of whom belong to Mali’s Garde Nationale, known as the “Brown Berets” (RFI, August 10). The Garde and its leaders are closely tied to Camara, who founded the force. Disagreements between junta leader General Assimi Goïta and Camara over the allocation of Malian mines to Russian interests may have contributed to the growing rivalry between the two men (The Sentry, August 2025). Camara is seeing much of his network of supporters dismantled, leaving him in a precarious position regarding his former ally, Goïta. While Goïta still approves of the Russian presence and has even authorized its expansion through recent talks in Moscow, he is wary of allowing a transfer of resources and national authority to the Russians, as has occurred in the Central African Republic.

Mali’s Garde Nationale – The “Brown Berets” (Bamada.net)

Only days after the purge of many of his followers, Camara represented Mali in Moscow during a meeting of defense ministers of the Alliance des États du Sahel (AES – Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso) and their Russian counterpart, Andrei Belousov, as well as Africa Corps leader Yunus Bek Yevkurov (see MLM, April 18, 2024; The Moscow Times, August 14; Bamada.net, August 15). During the proceedings, Camara declared his support for Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine (APA, August 14). In Mali, Camara has the support of Modibo Koné, the powerful pro-Russian leader of the Agence Nationale de Sécurité de l’État (ANSE) and a product of Camara’s Garde Nationale (Bamada.net, March 24).

SADAT mercenaries with President Erdoğan of Turkiye (North Africa Post)

Complicating the Russian relationship with the regime is the arrival in Bamako of SADAT, a self-proclaimed Turkish private military company providing “military training and defense consulting” (Sadat.com.tr, accessed September 28). SADAT’s main role in Mali appears to be the provision of training to Goïta’s security detail, though there are reports of Syrian SADAT members finding themselves on the front lines of the war against the Islamists (Le Monde, June 7, 2024). SADAT relies heavily on recruitment from Syrian fighters of the Syrian National Army (SNA, a coalition of Turkish-aligned Syrian rebels) and Turkmen from Syria’s Sultan Murad Division (NATO Defense Foundation, April 9). The organization was founded in 2012 by Erdoğan’s former military advisor, Brigadier General Adnan Tanrıverdi, and is believed to still enjoy Erdoğan’s patronage (Medya News, June 25, 2023; Le Monde, June 7, 2024; Gazete Duvar, December 27, 2024). Türkiye’s main opposition leader, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu (leader of the Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi – CHP), stated in June that “Russia’s Wagner is Türkiye’s SADAT Inc” (Duvar, June 24). SADAT’s role in protecting the junta leader suggests Goïta has some degree of suspicion regarding the ultimate intentions of the Russians or their supporters in Mali.

SADAT founder Adnan Tanriverdi (CNN Türk)

The junta appears to have been under the impression that Russian forces might enable it to escape the neo-colonialism inherent in the French and UN military presence in Mali. Instead, they have found a new partner set on accessing Mali’s natural resources, and that is even more selective in choosing which operations or actions it should carry out than the French.

The Russians so far appear to be disappointed by the lack of access to Mali’s lucrative mining sector, with the expected lucrative mining licenses failing to materialize for the most part (The Sentry, August 2025). One-half of Mali’s tax revenues derive from its gold mining industry (Reuters, July 19, 2023). Russia looks toward gold revenues from its activities in Africa to help fund its ongoing and costly war against Ukraine (see EDM, July 16).

The replacement of Wagner with the Africa Corps has not meant a wholesale replacement of Russian troops. Some 80 percent of Mali’s Africa Corps consists of Wagner personnel who chose to transfer into the new Russian Ministry of Defense unit rather than return to Russia, where they would likely find themselves on the front lines of the war against Ukraine (Africa Business Insider, August 28). There is growing friction between FAMa and the Russian troops, who tend to operate outside the Malian chain of command, appropriating resources, weapons, and transport for their operations. The Russian contractors are disliked for selectively intervening in support of FAMa.

As Mali endures economic, political, and military crises, the country’s ruling junta is seeking scapegoats. As ruptures appear in the ruling junta, it may only be a matter of time before the largely unproductive experiment with Russian security assistance offers Mali’s inept military rulers a new target for blame.

Western Sahara’s Polisario Movement: Manufacturing a Threat to Global Security

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Western Sahara’s Polisario Movement: Manufacturing a Threat to Global Security

Andrew McGregor

Terrorism Monitor 23(5)

Jamestown Foundation, Washington DC

September 10, 2025

Executive Summary:

  • Founded in 1973, the Polisario Front remains a UN-recognized secular liberation movement seeking independence from Moroccan rule. U.S. legislators are considering labeling the Sahrawi independence movement a terrorist group, fueled by allegations of ties to Iran, Hezbollah, and global jihadist networks, despite a lack of credible evidence. Accusations against the group appear to largely be intended to delegitimize the movement and reinforce Morocco’s ties with the United States and Israel.
  • The recent move against the group in the West is based on claims of Iranian training, rocket attacks with Iranian weapons, and a Polisario presence in Syria that appears largely fabricated or exaggerated through Moroccan, Israeli, and Western media outlets. Credible sources and intelligence officials reject a meaningful connection.

Polisario Fighters (Rue 20)

Recent media claims have put a lightly-armed group of independence-seeking desert fighters from Western Sahara, an obscure former Spanish colony, at the heart of an Iranian-backed terrorist network with designs on Morocco, Israel, Europe, and even the United States. U.S. legislators are now preparing to designate the 52-year-old Polisario movement as an international terrorist group and a general threat to world order (U.S. House of Representatives, June 24). This would represent the culmination of a massive and often contradictory campaign of misinformation and disinformation by promoters of Moroccan interests in the region, and promote closer ties between Morocco, Israel, and the United States.

The Polisario’s Progression

The Polisario (derived from the Spanish Frente Popular de Liberación de Saguía el Hamra y Río de Oro) was formed in 1973 with Algerian assistance to battle Spanish occupation. The Sahrawis who dwell in what is now known as Western Sahara were traditionally free-ranging nomads of Sanhaja Berber and Arab (of the Bani Hassan tribe) descent. They are Sunni Muslims of the Maliki school common to northwest Africa, and their society is tribal, with the Reguibat (who once provided native troops for the Spanish colony) forming the dominant group. The United Nations recognizes the Polisario Front as the legitimate representative of the Sahrawi people.

As the Polisario emerged in the 1970s, it adopted the Marxist and African socialist liberation ideology favored by independence movements across the continent at the time. However, the movement abandoned Marxism at a 1991 movement congress, a move partly inspired by the collapse of the Soviet Union that year (Guardian, February 11, 1999). When Spain relinquished its Saharan colony in 1975, the Polisario Front proclaimed the independence of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic with its capital at Laayoune.

Its independence, however, was immediately challenged by both Mauritania and Morocco, igniting a 16-year war for independence that stopped after Mauritania relinquished its claims, and a ceasefire was achieved with Morocco in 1991. By this time, Morocco had taken control of 80 percent of Western Sahara, which it consolidated through the construction of a 1700-mile fortified berm (a sand wall, or “the wall of shame and humiliation” in Sahrawi parlance). Today, at least 90,000 Sahrawi refugees live across the Algerian border in camps in Tindouf, which forms the base of the Polisario and its military wing, the Sahrawi People’s Liberation Army (SPLA).

Sahrawis in Tindouf (Dikó Betancourt)

The ceasefire has been monitored since 1991 by UN peacekeepers, the Misión de las Naciones Unidas para la Organización de un Referéndum en el Sáhara Occidental (MINURSO). The 1991 agreement called for a referendum of Sahrawis to decide on union with Morocco or independence. The referendum was never held, leaving the conflict in a state of paralysis. As disputes over voter eligibility rage on, the number of Moroccans encouraged to settle in the territory grows by the day, bringing an inevitable conclusion in favor of Rabat. Morocco has offered the Sahrawi autonomy, but is inflexible in insisting that Western Sahara should be rightfully understood as a traditional territory under the sovereignty of the Moroccan king.

In 2020, the Guerguerat incident led to the Polisario’s withdrawal from the 1991 ceasefire. Guerguerat is an important border post between Mauritania and Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara, where a Moroccan military operation against Sahrawi protesters led to clashes with Polisario fighters (Al Jazeera, November 13, 2020). The incident ignited other clashes, as the Polisario rejected the ceasefire and returned to a state of war. This unilateral move cost the Polisario badly needed international support.

Polisario’s Unwitting Entry into the Arab–Israeli Conflict

The Sahrawis have no history of engagement in hostilities against Israel. In contrast, Morocco sent a 5,500-man expeditionary force to fight alongside Arab forces in the 1973 Yom Kippur War (Jeune Afrique, November 7, 2013). Since then, Morocco, which has the Arab world’s largest Jewish population, has moved toward rehabilitating its relationship with Israel.

When Rabat signed on to the Abraham Accords (normalizing relations between Israel and Arab states) on December 10, 2020, the Trump administration rewarded Morocco by recognizing its sovereignty over Western Sahara. The idea of U.S. recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over the Western Sahara in exchange for participation in the Abraham Accords came from an Israeli group led by former Mossad deputy director and Knesset member Ram Ben Barak. The concept was then pursued by Trump senior adviser Jared Kushner and special envoy Avi Berkowitz for two years before its realization in 2020 (Axios, December 11, 2020). Morocco, Africa’s second-largest arms importer (rival Algeria is first), has in recent years turned to Israel as a major supplier of weapons, drones, and military reconnaissance satellites (The New Arab, April 16, 2024; Le Monde, May 9, 2024; Defense Post, August 15, 2024).

Since the 2020 U.S. recognition of Moroccan rule in the Western Sahara, only the Polisario has remained to be dealt with. A broad campaign emerged from sources in Israeli media, Moroccan media, and U.S. think-tanks that accused the Sahrawi separatists of jihadist terrorism and, most potently, of being willing tools of Iran’s ayatollahs. The small and once obscure movement is now alleged to be part of a “Tindouf–Tehran connection that threatens Africa’s sovereignty and security” (Atalyar [Madrid], June 2). The movement has, in addition, been accused by various groups of trafficking refugees, narcotics, and humanitarian and medical aid, as well as engaging in forced conscription and illegal detentions (Times of Israel, July 3).

The Polisario: An Iranian Proxy?

Morocco severed ties with Iran in 2018 after Moroccan foreign minister Nasser Bourita accused Algeria of providing operational support for Iranian and Hezbollah military and logistical aid to the Polisario (Al Jazeera, May 13, 2018; Morocco World News, June 30). The move helped align Morocco with the anti-Iran lobby in Washington. The Polisario, meanwhile, now faces U.S. bipartisan congressional legislation in the form of the “Polisario Front Terrorist Designation Act,” sponsored by Republican Representative Joe Wilson and Democratic Representative Jimmy Panetta, both vocal supporters of Israeli military action against Gaza and coordinated U.S.–Israeli strikes against Iran. Wilson maintains that the Polisario “is a Marxist militia” backed by Iran, Hezbollah, Cuba, and Russia, which is “providing Iran a strategic outpost in Africa” while destabilizing West Africa and the Kingdom of Morocco (X/@RepJoeWilson, January 15, June 26).

The Polisario rejects the proposed designation, in part, on the grounds that the designation requires threats to U.S. national security or U.S. citizens. The group asserts that “The Polisario Front has never attacked U.S. civilians or citizens. Its operations are directed exclusively against Moroccan military forces within the framework of a UN-recognized armed conflict” (ECSaharaui, June 27). If the legislation passes, it will make Algeria, the Polisario’s principal military, financial, and diplomatic supporter, a potential sponsor of terrorism. [1]

Polisario Patrol (SPS)

Alarming coverage in some British media has warned that the Polisario, “a Marxist militia backed by Iran [and] Hezbollah” (notably omitting Algeria), had plans to attack British and Israeli interests “as part of the group’s increasing terror alliance with Iran and their other proxies” (The Telegraph, July 1). Israeli sources similarly have claimed that the Polisario are “Iran-backed mercenaries operating from Algerian soil, funded by Tehran’s Quds Force, trained by Hezbollah operatives, and increasingly useful to Moscow … As Morocco deepens ties with Israel and the U.S., the Iran–Hezbollah axis sees the Western Sahara as the perfect place to retaliate…” (Ynet, April 19). The Polisario insists that “the ‘Iran–Hezbollah–Polisario axis’ narrative is entirely fabricated: a geopolitical propaganda tactic intended to associate the Polisario Front with U.S. regional adversaries, despite the lack of credible intelligence or official confirmation from U.S. security agencies” (ECSaharaui, June 27).

Shi’ite Iran’s efforts to create political and military relationships in the Sunni-majority Arab world have always been complicated by suspicion that it secretly intends to expand Shi’a religious influence. In 2022, Morocco’s foreign minister, Nasser Bourita, warned that “Iran plans to enter West Africa and to spread the Shi’a doctrine in the region” (New Arab, January 27, 2022). The Polisario, composed exclusively of Sunni Muslims, seems an unlikely tool if Iran’s involvement is religiously motivated.

The Polisario in Syria?

A document published on X by Moroccan former deputy Lahcen Haddad in December 2024 claimed that 120 Polisario fighters were sent to Syria in 2011 to receive military training from Syrians and Algerians. This was said to be done with “collaboration” from Hezbollah. The post saw wide distribution across the platform in 2025. The document offered alleged proof of the long-suspected “Iranian connection” to the Polisario. Despite claims that the file was found in “boxes of documents abandoned” by Bashar al-Assad during his December 2024 flight from Syria, it appears to have originated on a Moroccan Facebook page in April 2023 (X/Lahcenhaddad, December 10, 2024; Le360, April 21; African Digital Democracy Observatory, June 27).

Recent assertions of an armed Polisario presence in Syria include a 2024 article written by Fahad al-Masri, president of the National Salvation Front of Syria and a Paris-based Syrian expatriate dedicated to creating a Syrian–Moroccan partnership. Al-Masri claimed, based on anonymous but “reliable military sources on the ground in Syria,” that 200 Polisario fighters had been deployed by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to a Syrian base close to the Israeli border. There, they allegedly received Iranian training for the past three years (Ynet, November 23, 2024; African Digital Democracy Observatory, June 27).

In December 2024, the Algerian ambassador to Syria, Kamel Bouchama, made an innocent remark to the effect that some 500 Algerians or individuals of Algerian descent lived in Aleppo, Syria, including some families who had resided in the area for hundreds of years. In the hands of various Moroccan sources, the statement transformed into an assertion that 500 Polisario fighters carrying Algerian passports were under IRGC command in Aleppo. Though the ambassador clarified that the presence of these fighters was “purely imaginary,” references to the “500,” now supposedly detained and awaiting trial in Syria, continue to infect coverage of the “Iranian-controlled Polisario threat” despite no evidence of their existence (Arab Weekly, April 13; Watan News, April 25; African Digital Democracy Observatory, June 27).

The story of the “500” Iranian-trained Polisario in Syrian detention was later picked up by the Washington Post. It appeared in paragraph 30 of a lengthy piece dealing with Syrian efforts to shut down an Iranian arms smuggling route used to supply Hezbollah fighters (Washington Post, April 12). The Post article was immediately cited as U.S. “confirmation” of Iran–Algeria–Polisario connections in pan-Arab and Moroccan sources (Arab Weekly, April 13; Morocco World News, April 13).

The Post published a correction on April 24 in which the movement denied any connection with Iran. The statement offered that: “suggesting that Polisario fighters would abandon their decades-long struggle against Moroccan occupation to take part in distant conflicts is not only implausible but also an insult to the dignity and determination of a people fighting for their freedom” (Watan News, April 25). Months after the correction was published, Moroccan and Israeli sources continue to cite the Post’s report. They claim it is proof of Iran’s military training of Polisario fighters, with the Times of Israel calling it “explosive” and “irrefutable” (Morocco World News, June 11; Times of Israel, July 3).

The Attack on Smara and Potential Turn to Jihadism

As international pressure grows, the Polisario has stepped up its still modest military operations in response. The SPLA fired four rockets at the West Saharan town of Smara (known in Spanish as Esmara) on June 27, 220 km (140 miles) east of Laayoune (El Pais [Madrid], July 2; Sahara Press Service, June 27). The Polisario claimed it had targeted “enemy military positions.” However, an inspection by MINURSO peacekeepers indicated that the rockets had hit only uninhabited areas without causing any casualties or damage (Hespress [Rabat], June 28).

Attack on Smara – June 27, 2025

Moroccan sources reported the four rockets were Iranian-made and targeted an “educational institution” (Aldar, June 27). According to Moroccan military analyst Abderrahmane Mekkaoui, the rockets fired by the Polisario were samples of obsolete 1960s Soviet weaponry, the BM-21 122 mm Grad rocket. Mekkaoui states that the rockets came not from Iran, but from old Libyan stockpiles of the Gaddafi era, long-since seized by Algeria and passed on to the Polisario. The Polisario’s efforts to increase the range of the rockets reduced their accuracy, which Mekkaoui interprets as indicating an ideological shift to terrorism by abandoning precision guidance (in the notoriously inaccurate Grads) that could reduce civilian casualties (Hespress, June 30).

Spain’s national intelligence center (the Centro Nacional de Inteligencia, or CNI) monitors North Africa for potential threats to Spain. A recent CNI report noted that several individuals from Tindouf had acquired senior positions in Group for the Supporters of Islam and Muslims (JNIM) and Islamic State–West Africa Province (IS–WAP) (Hespress, June 8; Rue20 [Rabat], June 8; La Vanguardia [Barcelona], June 8). Most notable of these was Adnan Abu al-Walid al-Sahrawi, who spent very little time in the Polisario movement before joining a series of Salafi–Jihadi movements, ultimately becoming the leader of Islamic State–Greater Sahara (IS–GS) before his death at the hands of French forces in 2021.

Polisario Troops Fire Rockets at Morocco, 2021 (AP/ Bernat Armangue

Moroccan media hailed the report as proof of the Polisario’s “involvement in terrorist activities,” with the one-time separatist movement now “an incubator of terrorism” (Rue20 [Rabat], June 11). Conversely, a CNI counter-terrorism officer who spoke recently at a Madrid conference on the jihadist threat to Spain pointed out that there were not more than 25 to 30 Sahrawis among the 2,000 to 3,000 fighters in IS–GS. While some may have attained leadership positions, it was important to note that they commanded units drawn from other peoples of the Sahelo–Sahara region. He concluded that “there is by no means a link between the Saharawi movement or the Polisario Front with jihadism” and insisted that the presence of a small number of Sahrawi fighters in IS–GS should not “stigmatize” the Sahrawi community (ECSaharaui, June 30; La Vanguardia [Barcelona], June 30). Many Sahrawis, moreover, belong to the Qadiri and Tijani Sufi orders despised by Salafi–Jihadists.

It is clear that, by joining the jihadists, this handful of Sahrawis was abandoning the secular Sahrawi independence movement rather than transitioning it into yet another group of Sunni religious extremists. To believe that the Sahrawis are Sunni Salafi–Jihadists in thrall to Iranian Shi’ite extremists (Shi’ites being a primary target of Salafi–Jihadists) is to suggest an obviously contradictory and logically impossible ideological base for the Polisario movement. If the rump Sahrawi state decided to abandon its secular ideology to become the Taliban of northwest Africa, it would meet its first opposition from the Polisario’s sole sponsor, Algeria, which fought a long and especially bitter civil war (1992–2002) against native Islamist insurgents—something Algiers has no interest in repeating.

(Global Security.org)

Conclusion

The charges against the Polisario are as numerous as they are contradictory. According to its antagonists, today’s Polisario is a Marxist, jihadist, secular, separatist, terrorist, and atheist movement of Shiite and Sunni extremists and/or mercenaries trained, armed, and manipulated by the Russians, Iranians, Algerians, Cubans, Kurdish separatists, Chinese communists, and Lebanese Shiites to combat the forces of Morocco, Syrian rebels, Israel, and America. This is the cumulative result of an information war fought with greater intensity than anything the Polisario is involved with on the ground.

Evidence that Iran is supplying military equipment to the Polisario’s camps (which can only be done through Algeria) is dubious at best. Algeria, which suspected Iran of meddling in its civil war on behalf of the Islamist opposition, pursues a resolutely independent course in international affairs. It is difficult to believe Tehran would now be allowed direct access to the Sahrawi camps to arm and recruit local fighters to pursue the interests of Shiite Iran at Algeria’s expense.

Rather than posing a threat to Europe, America, the Middle East, and North Africa, the Polisario movement dwells in a perpetual state of political, diplomatic, and military weakness. The movement has never had a charismatic leader, and there is little internationally attractive about the movement’s isolated, militarized society, confined to barren refugee camps dependent on UN and Algerian aid as well as whatever else can be eked out from corruption. The alleged Polisario shift from a focus on local independence to an ambitious international agenda seems utterly perplexing, especially when it has failed to achieve any of its more modest local goals over five decades of struggle.

Note:

[1] At the time of publishing, the bill remains with the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and Committee on the Judiciary.

Wagner Withdrawal Signals Potential Change in Russian Approach to Mali

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Andrew McGregor

July 9, 2025

Eurasia Daily Monitor, Washington DC

Executive Summary

  • Russia’s Wagner Group is being withdrawn from Mali after a three-and-a-half-year deployment with a mixed record of battlefield successes that have come at enormous civilian cost.
  • Wagner’s replacement with the Russian Defense Ministry’s Africa Corps may signal a change in tactics, but a military buildup suggests expanded military operations against insurgent and terrorist groups are on their way.
  • Security-related shifts are being accompanied by new Russian-Malian partnerships in the energy and mining sectors.

Mali’s relationship with Russia is entering a new stage with the withdrawal of the last members of the Wagner Group and the signing of new bilateral agreements on trade, development and the launch of a plan to build a Russian-designed low-power nuclear plant in Mali (TASS, June 23; Business Insider Africa, June 23). The agreements came during the second visit to Moscow of Mali’s president, General Assimi Goïta (Maliweb, June 17).

General Assimi Goïta (Idrissa Diakité/EFE/Newscom/MaxPPP)

Mali’s military government has also announced a partnership with Russian firm Yadran Group to build a gold refinery near the capital of Bamako. The move is in line with a declaration by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov that Russia intends to focus with African countries “primarily on economic and investment interaction… This also corresponds to and extends to such sensitive areas as defence and security” (al-Jazeera, June 9).

The Malian junta is currently consolidating state control over the gold industry, recently taking over the operations of Canadian giant Barrick Mining. It is envisioned that the new refinery will be a regional center for processing gold (Afrinz.ru, May 30). Most African gold is currently refined outside Africa in China, Canada and Switzerland; Mali has two existing refineries but neither meet international standards (fr.africannews.com, November 24, 2023; Business Insider Africa, June 23). Mali is Africa’s second-largest gold producer; neighboring Burkina Faso, which has also welcomed Russia’s Africa Corps, is fourth. Most of the gold found in northern Mali is obtained through artisanal mining exploited by Wagner personnel.

Artisanal Gold Mining in Mali (Sebastien Rieussec/AFP)

On the security front, the question is what changes will come as Russia’s Africa Corps, under the direction of Russia’s ministry of defense, replaces the private military contractors (PMCs) of the Wagner Group. Mali is struggling with insurgencies in northern Mali carried out by Tuareg separatists and rival al-Qaeda and Islamic State bands of Salafi-Jihadists drawn from the Arab, Tuareg and Fulani communities. The separatists and jihadists are known to cooperate on major operations such as the devastating July 2024 strike at Tinzawatène that killed scores of Wagner fighters and regular troops of the Forces Armées Maliennes (FAMa) (see EDM, July 31, 2024; EDM, September 11, 2024).

Wagner personnel arrived in Mali in the fall of 2021 and announced the end of their mission on June 6, stating they had combated terrorism and “accomplished the main task – all regional capitals returned to the control of the legitimate authorities. The mission is complete. PMC Wagner is returning home” (Novaya Gazeta, June 5; Lenta.ru, June 6). Wagner personnel in Mali were responsible for training FAMa, combating terrorists and protecting high-ranking officials. The Russian contractors replaced long-standing French and UN missions that were unable to secure Mali despite a decade of effort. Even as Wagner was announcing a successful end to their mission, al-Qaeda associated insurgents of the Jama’a Nusrat al-Islam wa’l-Muslimin (JNIM) were driving a FAMa garrison from their base at Boulkessi (central Mali) in a two-day attack (RFI, June 8).

Boulkessi (France24)

While the transition from Wagner to Africa Corps went smoothly in most parts of Africa with a Russian military presence, there was a degree of resistance among some Wagner personnel in Mali against coming under formal control of the Russian defense ministry. Most Wagnerites have been absorbed into the Africa Corps, while those unwilling to sign new contracts will likely be returned to Russia (Al-Jazeera, June 16).

During its three and a half years in Mali, the PMC claimed to have eliminated “four leaders of terrorist organizations, thousands of militants and 11 of their strongholds… leaving behind a stable and safe environment” (Kommersant, June 6).  According to pro-Kremlin media: “Thousands of terrorists have been neutralized. Bases and strongholds of radical gangs have been destroyed. The remnants of the groups have been pushed back into the desert, where they are deprived of infrastructure and resources” (Lenta.ru, June 6).

In reality, Wagner/FAMA forces have suffered repeated ambushes over the last year and attacks have begun to spread into central and even heavily-populated southern Mali (Militarnyi, June 16).  The junta blames the increasing tempo of anti-government attacks on alleged French sponsorship of terrorists and separatists. On June 17, Malian spokesman Colonel-Major Souleymane Dembélé referred obliquely to the former colonial power when he stated: “Remember this statement by a Chief of Staff of a former partner country who said they would return in another form… Those who have financed terrorism for years are revealing themselves today, mobilizing, rearming, and financing armed groups to sow terror and discredit our forces” (Le Matin [Bamako], June 19). The officers that took power in 2021 believe the Tuareg of northern Mali gained too much autonomy in a 2015 peace agreement and became too close to French military forces operating against Islamist terrorists in the region.

Russian Military Equipment Arrives in Bamako (DefenceWeb)

Russia’s defense ministry appears to be preparing for larger military operations in Mali. A large shipment of armored vehicles and other materiel arrived in Bamako in January after being shipped through the Guinean port of Conakry. Among the vehicles were BMD infantry fighting vehicles, T-72B3 tanks, BTR-80/82A armored personnel carriers (APCs), Lens armored cars, Spartak armored vehicles and Tigr armored vehicles (Militarnyi, January 18). Further weaponry arrived on May 31 for Africa Corps use, including 122mm and 152mm howitzers, a BTR electronic warfare APC, more Spartak armored vehicles, tanker trucks and transport trucks (Kanal 13/Youtube, June 10; RFI, June 20).

Crash of the SU-24M

Mali is proving a challenging setting for Russian military aviation. An Africa Corps SU-24M bomber made an emergency landing in the Niger River on June 14, allegedly due to the effects of a sandstorm, though it was also reported to have taken fire from insurgents (MaliActu, June 14; IntelliNews, June 18). In October 2022, a newly-delivered SU-25 fighter crashed near Gao on its return from a mission, killing its Russian pilot (Defenceweb, October 5, 2022). Its replacement also crashed near Gao in September 2023, possibly after being fired on by insurgents who had attacked the Gao airport the day before (Military Africa, September 11, 2023). Malian fixed-wing air assets have now been reduced to four L-39 jet trainers supplied in August 2022 (IntelliNews, June 18; Defenceweb, October 5, 2022).

Wagner and FAMa have been accused of brutality and massacres of civilians in their conduct of the counter-insurgency. A broad investigation carried out by a European journalist collective revealed a pattern of abuse by Wagner personnel that included “kidnappings, arbitrary arrests, no contact with the outside world, and systematic torture—sometimes to the point of death.” At least six Wagner-operated detention centers were identified, all located within FAMa bases (France24, June 12). [1]  Stills and video of atrocities and potential war crimes by Wagner and FAMa personnel have been shared on social media channels, leading to requests for an International Criminal Court investigation (Euronews, June 23).

The replacement of Wagner with the Africa Corps will be closely watched to see if it is accompanied by a change in methods and tactics, though it should be noted that most Africa Corps personnel are Wagner veterans. Atrocities and other abuses will now be the responsibility of the Russian Defense Ministry, with the deniability of Wagner now gone. There has been speculation that the shift to Africa Corps from Wagner might mean a shift from the latter’s use of extreme violence, but the methods used by Russian Defense Ministry troops in Ukraine do not encourage this belief.

In the pattern of cyclical rebellions everywhere, a rebellious people become increasingly open to more extreme ideology, in this case the adoption of Salafi-Jihadism by a people for whom such concepts were until recently unthinkable. The methods of Russian contractors and FAMa troops encourage recruitment by religious extremists and seem part of an effort to secure a realistically unattainable military solution to the latest round of rebellions that have consumed northern Mali since independence from France in 1960.

Though the Africa Corps may prefer to focus on a training mission, the current pace of attacks on FAMa and Russian targets may compel further and even larger combat missions. The influx of Russian arms and armor seems to indicate that preparation for this scenario is underway.

Note

  1. The Viktoriia Project is a collective named in memory of Ukrainian journalist Viktoriia Roshchyna, who died in Russian captivity in 2024 after investigating the illegal detention of civilians in Russian-occupied Ukraine.

Battle for Jabal Arkenu: Controlling the Supply Lines in Sudan’s Civil War

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AIS Special Report

June 13, 2025

Andrew McGregor

Jabal Arkenu

The year was 1923, and Egyptian explorer Hassanein Bey was on a camel-borne search for two “lost oases” in the unknown depths of the Libyan Desert. Even the South Pole had been visited less than 12 years earlier, but this corner of the south-eastern Libyan Desert remained blank on most charts despite rumors of two mountains where water could be found in an otherwise barren, burning wasteland. Hassanein Bey and his small party of desert dwellers were 111 days out from his starting point in the Libyan port of Sollum when an amazing sight appeared:

We were having a hard time of it crossing the high steep sand-dunes when suddenly mountains rose before us like medieval castles half hidden in the mist. A few minutes later the sun was on them, turning the cold gray into warm rose and pink… I had found what I came to seek. These were the mountains of Arkenu. [1]

Though Jabal Arkenu defined remote isolation at the time, Hassanein believed that “Arkenu may conceivably prove to have strategic value at some future time.” The explorer was right; only days ago the desert round Arkenu was the scene of a battle with great implications for the future of Sudan.

Hassanein Bey

The Spiral Sisters

The area around Jabal Arkenu and its larger sister mountain Jabal ‘Uwaynat (25 km south-east of Jabal Arkenu) now mark the intersection of the borders of Libya, Egypt and Sudan, with the north-eastern corner of Chad not far to the south. As such, the region is now known as the Triangle area (al-Muthalath). The region around Jabal ‘Uwaynat, once a path for the Ancient Egyptians into the African interior according to recently discovered inscriptions, has now become a pathway for smugglers, mercenaries, rebels, human traffickers and gold miners. [2] In an otherwise waterless region, the massive spiral mountains collect local rainfall in natural basins within the rocks, a fact long known to the indigenous Tubu desert dwellers who brought their camels there to graze and water.

Jabal Arkenu

The recent discovery of gold in the region has attracted artisanal gold miners who operate in the region with little regard to borders. Egypt and Libya are seeking to replace these miners with modern mining operations, while Sudan is satisfied to collect fees through the Sudanese Minerals Resources Company without providing any services (Radio Dabanga, November 8, 2024).

The Attack on the Triangle

One hundred and two years after Hassanein Bey rediscovered the lost mountain oases, war has arrived in al-Muthalath. Possession of the desert crossing that passes through the Triangle region has suddenly become a strategic imperative for Sudanese government forces (the Sudan Armed Forces – SAF) and their adversaries in Sudan’s civil war, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) led by Muhammad Hamdan Daglo “Hemetti.” The latter group, once a government paramilitary before breaking with the SAF, has acquired the support of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and an Islamist militia belonging to the so-called Libyan National Army of “Field Marshal” Khalifa Haftar.

This militia, known as Subul al-Salam (“Ways of Peace”), crossed 3 km into Sudan near Jabal Arkenu on June 6 in support of RSF units (Sudan Tribune, June 11). The joint Libyan-RSF movement displaced the main Sudanese units controlling the border, the Central Reserve Forces (a police paramilitary) and the Darfur Joint Force (Atalyar, March 21; Sudan Tribune, March 22). The SAF presence consisted of only a small number of intelligence and security agents (Mada Masr, June 14). The Darfur Joint Force (a.k.a. Sudanese Joint Force, or Juba Peace Agreement Joint Forces) consists of rebel forces that were signatories to the 2020 Juba Peace Agreement and have since sided with the Port Sudan-based Sudan government. The main elements hail from Darfur’s powerful Zaghawa minority – the Sudan Liberation Movement – Minni Minawi (SLM-MM) and Jibril Ibrahim’s Justice and Equality Movement (JEM). Some SLA fighters may be using Emirati-supplied weapons obtained when they were fighting as mercenaries on behalf of Khalifa Haftar before the signing of the Juba peace agreement (France24.com, April 20).

Fighting began on June 8. The RSF announced its takeover of the Triangle border region on June 11, claiming heavy SAF losses (AFP, June 11).  After a “defensive withdrawal” of government forces, the closest Sudanese army presence may now be 400 km from the Triangle region (Sudan Tribune, June 11).  According to the RSF, the region contains “rich natural resources, including oil, gas and minerals (Rapidsupportforce.com, June 12).

The SAF said its forces in the Triangle region were subject to a “surprise attack” by the RSF’s “terrorist militia” and Libya’s Subul al-Salam battalion (Libya Observer, June 11). Sudan’s military further declared the role of the Libyan militia was “a reprehensible and unprecedented gesture and a flagrant violation of international law… the direct intervention of Khalifa Haftar’s forces alongside the Rapid Support Forces in the war is a blatant aggression against Sudan, its land, and its people, and an extension of the international and regional conspiracy against our country…” (Darfur 24, June 10).

‘Abd al-Rahman Hasham al-Kilani

For his part, Subul al-Salam commander ‘Abd al-Rahman Hasham al-Kilani brushed over the encounter, claiming it was the result of a “misunderstanding” with the Darfur Joint Force, which believed the Libyan militia had crossed the border (Mada Masr, June 14). Haftar’s military command described allegations of participation by his forces as false and “a blatant attempt to export Sudan’s internal crisis” (Radio Dabanga, June 12).

Colombian mercenaries after their convoy was attacked in North Sudan, November 20, 2024 (La Silla Vacía)

Late last year, a battalion of at least 350 Colombian mercenaries began moving in stages from Abu Dhabi to Benghazi, through the desert to the Kufra district and then south across the border into northern Darfur using a crossing just south of the Triangle region. The mercenaries, combat-experienced veterans of the Colombian army, were recruited by Dubai-based Colonel Álvaro Quijano on the understanding they would be deployed as static defense for oil installations in the Middle East. Instead their passports were seized by Libyan soldiers in Benghazi who explained they were being sent south to fight alongside the RSF in Sudan.  Quijano, a Colombian, is an associate of a private security firm, the UAE-based Global Security Service Group. One convoy was ambushed by the Darfur Joint Force after crossing the border into Sudan, leading to the loss of three men. Once in Darfur, some of the Colombians have been sent into street-to-street fighting in the besieged North Darfur capital, al-Fashir, while others have been sent to train RSF fighters in Nyala, capital of South Darfur (La Silla Vacia [Bogota], November 26, 2024; March 2, 2025; March 3, 2025).

The Salafists of Kufra

The oasis of Kufra in south-eastern Libya, home of the Subul al-Salam brigade, was for centuries a major stage for trans-Saharan caravans and the shipment of slaves until its conquest by Italy in the 1930s. Kufra was dominated for centuries by indigenous Black semi-nomadic Tubu tribesmen until they were displaced by Zuwaya Arabs in 1840. Since the 2011 Libyan Revolution, Kufra has become an important stage for the transportation of sub-Saharan African migrants moving through the Triangle region to the Mediterranean coast, with numerous clashes occurring between the rival Zuwaya and Tubu communities (Libya Observer, March 5, 2018).

Libya

The brigade was formed by ‘Abd al-Rahman Hashim al-Kilani, a Madkhali Salafist, after Zuwaya clashes with the Tubu and their Darfuri allies in 2015. Salafism is a revivalist interpretation of Islam that believes Islam’s authentic form was found in the time of the Prophet Muhammad and his first three successors (the Salaf). With the encouragement and funding of Saudi Arabia, Salafism has grown rapidly in recent decades, often displacing traditional and more flexible forms of Islam around the world. It has become associated in its most extreme form with political and religious violence (Salafi-Jihadism). Madkhalism is a form of Salafism developed by Saudi shaykh Rabi’ bin Hadi al-Madkhali that emphasizes a “quietist” approach to religion, avoiding overt political involvement while emphasizing obedience to authoritarian leaders. Madkhalism has found fertile ground in Libya, where its followers have formed powerful militias in Kufra, Tripoli and other regions. [3]

Salafists oppose Sufi approaches to Islam, rejecting their rites and rituals as bid’ah (religious innovation, i.e. practices that did not exist in the times of the Salaf). Libya has a strong Sufi tradition, with the powerful Sanusi order leading the resistance to Italian colonialism. Though Kufra was the traditional headquarters of the Sanusi Sufi order, the anti-Sufi Madkhalists destroyed the funerary shrine of Sanusi leader Sayyid Muhammad al-Mahdi al-Sanusi (1844-1902) and stole his remains in 2018 (Terrorism Monitor, April 6, 2018). Since then, the Madkhalist Salafis have held the upper hand in southeastern Libya.

After its formation, Subul al-Salam quickly aligned with the forces of General Khalifa al-Haftar (a leading military commander under Mu’ammar Qaddafi until his defeat by Chadian forces in the 1987 “Toyota War” and later an alleged anti-Qaddafi CIA asset after his exile to the United States), who supplied the Zuwaya fighters with 40 armored Toyota trucks (Libya Herald, October 20, 2016).

Libya is currently divided politically between two factions – the Tobruk-based Libyan House of Representatives (HoR) dominated by al-Haftar’s Libyan National Army (LNA – an alignment of various militias and other armed groups under al-Haftar’s command rather than a true “national army”) versus the internationally recognized Government of National Unity (GNU) based in Tripoli. The latter controls western Libya (Tripolitania), while al-Haftar’s LNA controls the east (Cyrenaïca) and the south-west (Fezzan).

Tribal ties remain important in Libya; it is worth noting al-Haftar’s mother was from the Zuwaya, who have established a trading network from Kufra in the south to the Mediterranean coast in the north. Al-Haftar relies for weapons and other support from Russia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which is also believed to supply weapons to the RSF. Prior to the Libyan offensive, satellite imagery revealed an increase in UAE cargo aircraft arriving at the Kufra airport, including three IL-76TD cargo planes present between May 21 and May 31 (X, June 10). After the Libyan/RSF takeover of the Triangle region, the Sudanese Foreign Ministry denounced the “dangerous escalation of the Abu Dhabi regime-sponsored external aggression against Sudan,” describing it as a “flagrant violation of international law” (Al-Monitor, June 11; Fes News, June 11). The ministry further condemned the “blatant aggression… supported by the United Arab Emirates and its militias in the region” (Radio Dabanga, June 12). Al-Haftar also has Egyptian backing and has been supported in the field by Russian military contractors, most notably in his failed 2019 campaign to take Tripoli and unite Libya under his rule.

The Subul al-Salam brigade has clashed with Sudanese fighters before, killing 13 members of the Darfuri Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) in 2016. The members of JEM, a mainly Zaghawa rebel group, were operating as mercenaries near the oasis of Jaghbub at the time alongside a group of indigenous Black Tubu fighters.

Saddam al-Hafter – The Heir Apparent

Subul al-Salam comes under the direction of Khalifa Haftar’s son, Saddam, who is being groomed to succeed his 81-year-old father. At the same time the Russian-backed Khalifa is being supplied with heavy weapons, armored vehicles and Pantsir air defense systems by the Kremlin, Saddam has been holding quiet meetings in Washington with top state department and intelligence officials in the Trump administration (Militarnyi.com, May 26; MEE, June 12). Saddam is overseeing the Russian rehabilitation of a disused Qaddafi-era airbase (Matan al-Sarra) in southeastern Libya for use by Russia’s Africa Corps (EDM, April 17). Al-Haftar has already been accused of using Matan al-Sarra as a distribution point for arms headed to the RSF. (Sudan Tribune, June 11). When completed, Matan al-Sarra will join six other bases used by Russian forces in Haftar-controlled regions of Libya – al-Khadim, al-Jufra, Brak al-Shati, al-Wigh, Tamanhint, and al-Qardabiya

(MAPPR)

RSF Strategic Objectives

The RSF is looking to take the war into the Northern Province (home of the Arab-Nubian elites that have governed Sudan since independence), and notes that control of the Triangle region “is a significant step that will impact multiple combat front lines, particularly in the northern desert” (Rapidsupportforce.com, June 12). The RSF is dominated by Sudan’s western Arabs (residents of Kordofan and Darfur) who have been rivals of the more politically and economically successful northern Arabs since the days of the Mahdiyya (1881-1899).

As a step towards consolidating control of northern Sudan and supply lines from southern Libya, the RSF took al-Malha (a Meidobi town 210 km northeast of al-Fashir) in March, killing 40 people and burning down the market after looting it. Al-Malha connects northeast to the strategic Nile town of al-Dabba in Northern State via the Wadi al-Milk and east to the town of Hamrat al-Shaykh in North Kordofan, which the RSF hopes to incorporate into a new state together with Darfur, one independent of the Transitional Sovereignty Council (TSC) government and the SAF in the temporary Sudanese capital in Port Sudan.

The RSF is increasingly concerned that it may lose its most important supply line for UAE arms and military materiel, which runs from an Emirati-built airbase in Um Jaras (or Amjarass, Ennedi province) east into West Darfur. SAF commander and TSC chairman General ‘Abd al-Fatah al-Burhan has demanded that Chad dismantle the Um Jaras base and close Chad’s border with Darfur to RSF-destined logistical convoys. Chad’s ruler, Mahamat Idris Déby Itno, like many of Chad’s ruling elite, is a member of the Zaghawa ethnic group, which straddles the Chad-Sudan border. However, the Darfur Zaghawa oppose the Arab-dominated RSF and sent a delegation of elders in February to meet with President Déby to urge an end to Chadian accommodation of the RSF (Mada Masr, March 7). Should Chad’s leadership decide to back away from the RSF, the establishment of a secure alternative supply route for UAE arms and supplies through Libya to northern Sudan will become imperative.

Notes

  1. AM Hassanein Bey: The Lost Oases, New York and London, 1925, pp. 210-217.
  2. Andrew McGregor, “Egyptian exploration of the African interior – Caravans to Yam,” Ancient History Magazine 15, April/May 2017, pp. 38-45. For Jabal ‘Uwaynat, see: “Jabal ‘Uwaynat: Mysterious Desert Mountain Becomes a Three-Border Security Flashpoint,” AIS Special Report, June 13, 2017, https://www.aberfoylesecurity.com/?p=3930
  3. Andrew McGregor, “Radical Loyalty and the Libyan Crisis: A Profile of Salafist Shaykh Rabi’ bin Hadi al-Madkhali,” Jamestown Foundation, January 2017, https://www.aberfoylesecurity.com/?p=5244

General Sultani Makenga, Donald Trump and the Battle for Tantalum in the Congo

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Andrew McGregor

AIS Special Report

June 2, 2025                         

During an April meeting with Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni, President Donald Trump made a reference to the Congo, quickly adding “I don’t know what that is…” (Africa News, April 21). Trump’s senior advisor for Africa, Massad Boulos (whose son is married to Trump’s daughter, Tiffany), quickly reassured Africans that, despite his unfamiliarity with Africa’s second-largest country and its 110 million people, Trump “highly values Africa and African people… Africa is very important to Trump” (BBC, April 23).

Three weeks earlier, Boulos had provided the news that the United States was engaged in talks related to a security-for-critical minerals agreement with Congolese president Felix Tshisekedi (similar to that proposed to Ukraine), adding that “I am pleased to announce that the president and I have agreed on a path forward for its development.” According to Tshisekedi, American might would help keep armed factions like the Congo’s powerful rebel M23 movement “at bay” (AP, April 3). The M23 is widely believed to receive substantial military support from neighboring Rwanda.

It is difficult to say how this military security might be provided. The Congolese government envisions US forces replacing the massive but ineffective UN contingent in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), but any deployment of American troops under the current administration seems unlikely. General Michael Langley, commander of U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), told a gathering of African military leaders on May 29: “You can no longer depend on the military strength or the financial support of the United States” (Garowe Online, May 31). Washington is considering folding AFRICOM into US European Command, another step in abandoning the resource-rich continent to Russia (Reuters, May 27).

Further complicating matters is the endemic corruption and expectation of bribes that runs unchecked through Congolese society and all its business and government institutions. China has managed to navigate this system with some success in the Congo’s mineral sector through government investment and subsidies to become the DRC’s main mineral partner. Beijing is also expanding its military cooperation with African nations as America’s military steps back (Business Insider Africa, May 31).

The US administration is currently sponsoring peace negotiations between M23 and the government in Kinshasa. With both sides in the conflict having submitted draft peace agreements, US mining firms are reported to have expressed interest in operating in the Congo (The Africa Report, May 28).

Tantalum

The Battle for Tantalum

Tantalum is an especially rare critical mineral, yet its unique properties make it vital in the electronics industry and the manufacture of computer chips and medical implants. Everything from fighter jets to nuclear reactors to smart phones rely on tantalum, with new uses and demand growing daily (Institut für seltene erden und metalle AG [Lucerne], August 2024). The DRC is the world’s largest producer of tantalum, most of it coming from the northeastern provinces of Nord and Sud Kivu, war plagued regions rich in copper, tin, tungsten, gold, cobalt, lithium and the coltan from which tantalum is extracted (Mining.com, April 17).

(ResearchGate)

In 2023, the DRC claimed Rwanda, a country with few mineral deposits of its own, was exporting over $1 billion a year in tantalum, tin, tungsten and gold: “It’s all coming from DRC – that’s obvious” (Financial Times, March 21, 2023). Nonetheless, Rwanda claims to be “among the top producers of Tantalum, producing about 9 per cent of the world’s Tantalum used in electronics manufacturing” (The Great Lakes Eye, November 7, 2023). Between them (regardless of actual origin), the DRC and Rwanda account for 58% of world production of tantalum, the price of which has risen 25% since January due to the insecurity in Kivu (Discovery Alert, May 7). The United States obtains all its tantalum from foreign sources, its own reserves of coltan being of poor quality.

The Warlord of Kivu: Sultani Makenga

“In brief, my life is war, my education is war, and my language is war” (New African, February 15, 2013). In this way, Congolese “General” Sultani Makenga defines his life and purpose as part of an endless cycle of conflict and brutality centered on the Congolese province of Nord Kivu. As the military leader of M23, Makenga currently dominates the eastern Congo and its production of critical minerals.

General Sultani Makenga

Like many of his contemporaries, Makenga is the product of the 1994 Rwandan genocide of Tutsis by their Hutu neighbors that eventually spilled over into the neighboring Nord and Sud Kivu provinces of the eastern DRC. Sharing borders with Uganda and Rwanda, the Kivu region is rich in minerals and other resources, but residents cope with poverty and violence as the region has become a relentless battleground for local Tutsis, exiled Hutu génocidaires, Islamist extremists, bandit groups, a deeply corrupt Congolese army and regulars of the Ugandan and Rwandan militaries.

Under Makenga’s direction, Nord Kivu’s M23 movement has been accused of committing numerous atrocities and human rights violations, including massacres of civilians, mass rapes and the recruitment of child soldiers (US Treasury Department, November 13, 2012). Makenga is unapologetic for his role in the violence that plagues the Kivu region:

I am a soldier, and the language that I know is that of the gun. My home has been in the bush, fighting injustice and corrupt regimes in this region. Therefore, when a politician wants to play politics with me, my response won’t be the political podium but the barrel of the gun because that’s my way of fighting for my rights (New African, February 15, 2013).

Makenga’s Early Life

Makenga enjoys a reputation as one of the finest strategists and tacticians in east-central Africa (ChimpReports, February 6, 2017). Always well-guarded, Makenga avoids making speeches or public appearances, and walks with a cane after being wounded in Katanga during a rebellion there in the late 1990s (Le Monde, April 7, 2023).

This Tutsi warlord was born in the Nord Kivu town of Masisi in 1973 with the full name of Nziramakenga Ruzandiza Emmanuel Sultan, but grew up in the nearby town of Rutshuru. Makenga is a member of the Mugogwe sub-group of the Tutsi (New African, February 15, 2013). Like Makenga, many members of the M23 group are Congolese Tutsis closely related to the Tutsi population in neighboring Rwanda. Many of the Congo’s Tutsis descend from Rwandan migrant workers encouraged by Belgian colonialists to settle in Nord Kivu in the 1930s; as a result, accusations of being “foreigners” frequently surface during regional episodes of ethnic tension. Part of the M23’s effort to establish local control in these communities includes the destruction of records delineating the lineage of traditional authority in Nord Kivu (The Conversation, October 24, 2024).

The Rwandan Civil War

After dropping out of school, Makenga moved to Uganda, where he underwent six months of military training. He then joined the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) in 1990 at age 17 with the intention of fighting the anti-Tutsi regime of President Juvénal Habyarimana in Rwanda before the president’s assassination in 1994 (New African, February 15, 2013). The RPF was a movement of Tutsi exiles determined to end Hutu domination of Rwanda and restore “traditional” Tutsi rule.

Despite the minimal education common to herding boys like Makenga and a difficulty in speaking French or English (though he is fluent in Swahili and Kinyarwanda), the young Makenga rose to the rank of sergeant by the end of the conflict, one of the highest ranks available to Congolese Tutsis in the RPF  (Le Monde, April 7, 2023; Riftvalley.net, 2018). He became known for his tactical skills, especially in setting ambushes (Riftvalley.net, 2018).

Roughly one million Hutus fled Rwanda after the RPF victory left them fearing retribution for the murder of 800,000 Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus. After their arrival in Nord Kivu, the Hutu destabilized the whole region by forming extremist militias (Interhamwe) that mounted cross-border raids and attacked local Congolese Tutsis. Little help could be obtained from the corrupt and incompetent army of dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, the Forces Armées Zaïroises (FAZ – the Congo was renamed Zaïre from 1981 to 1997). Their failure to provide security would eventually lead to a national rebellion supported by Rwanda and Uganda that would depose Mobutu.

Laurent-Désiré Kabila

When the Tutsi-Hutu struggle in Rwanda ended in 1996, Makenga decided to return home to the DRC and “fight for my country.” It was then that he met Laurent-Désiré Kabila and together, in Makenga’s words, “launched the liberation struggle for the Congo” (New African, February 15, 2013).

Makenga and the First Congo War – 1996-1997

Kabila’s chief strategist, the Rwandan James Kabarebe, led the rebel Alliance des Forces Démocratiques pour la Libération du Congo-Zaïre (AFDL), a coalition that captured Kinshasa, overthrew Mobutu and seized power on May 17, 1997. Burundi and Angola joined Uganda and Rwanda in supporting the broad-based military operation. Zaïre was renamed the “Democratic Republic of the Congo” (DRC) and Laurent-Désiré Kabila installed as the DRC’s new president.

Makenga broke with Kabila in 1997, accusing him of continuing the marginalization of the Congolese Tutsis. A refusal to obey AFDL orders left Makenga to serve a term on the Rwandan prison island of Iwawa in Lake Kivu (Le Monde, April 7, 2023).

The Congolese Tutsis who played a prominent part in the overthrow of Mobutu were later branded as “foreigners” by now-President Kabila, who insisted they “return” to Rwanda (New African, February 15, 2013). His declaration repeated Mobutu’s own November 1996 order for Congolese Tutsis to leave the country. As Makenga reflected: “You help someone to become president through the gun, but when he tastes power, you become his first victim” (New African, February 15, 2013).

Makenga and the Second Congo War – 1998-2003

Now opposed to the rule of Kabila, who had expelled his Rwandan supporters and persecuted the Congolese Tutsis, Makenga joined Uganda’s elite Nguruma Battalion. The unit took part in an audacious operation planned by Rwanda’s James Kabarebe, former chief-of-staff of Kabila’s armed forces before his dismissal in July 1998. The Kitona Airlift of August 1998 began with the capture of the airport at Goma (provincial capital of Nord Kivu) and the hijacking of four civilian passenger planes, which over two days ferried some 3,000 Rwandan and Ugandan troops 1200 miles to the DRC’s far west, where they seized the Atlantic port of Matadi and the Inga Dam, cutting off power to the capital of Kinshasa. The bold plan only failed due to the intervention of Zimbabwean, Namibian and Angolan troops. Both the operation and its repression were marked by widespread rape, murder and looting on all sides. Back in Nord Kivu, Rwandan forces attacked camps believed to host the Hutu militia known as the Forces démocratiques de libération du Rwanda (FDLR).

After nearly three years of war, Joseph Kabila succeeded his father Laurent as president after the latter’s assassination by one of his cousins on January 16, 2001. Joseph Kabila would remain president until 2019, when he was succeeded by current president Félix Tshisekedi after a series of bloody mass protests against his rule.

Joseph Kabila (The Africa Report)

Makenga became a major in the Rwandan-backed Tutsi rebel movement Rassemblement congolais pour la démocratie (RCD) in 1998. Many members were veterans of the AFDL. The movement succeeded in taking Goma in August 1998, but by 1999-2000, the group had splintered, diminishing its importance before a regional agreement brought an end to the Second Congo War in 2003.

Makenga and the New War of the CNDP

Backed by Uganda and Rwanda, the anti-Kabila General Laurent “The Chairman” Nkunda formed the Nord Kivu-based Congrès national pour la défense du people (CNDP) in December 2006. Kabila had fallen out of favor with his former backers, including Makenga, who joined many AFDL/RCD veterans in the new movement.

An October 2008 CNDP offensive brought the group to the outskirts of Goma after the Congolese garrison had looted the city and fled. Instead of occupying the city, Nkunda declared a unilateral ceasefire, creating dissension among CNDP fighters (al-Jazeera, October 30, 2008; UNSC November 2008 Monthly Forecast, October 30, 2008).

CNDP fighters under Makenga’s command were accused of participating in the November 4-5 2008 massacre of 67 civilians in the Nord-Kivu town of Kiwanja despite the nearby presence of UN peacekeepers who failed to intervene (Independent Online [Johannesburg], June 19, 2012).

After a violent split in the movement, Nkunda was arrested by Rwandan authorities in January 2009. General Bosco “The Terminator” Ntaganda (a Rwandan Tutsi) took over one faction of the movement, which quickly began cooperating with the Congo’s new national army, the Forces Armées de la République Démocratique du Congo (FARDC), against Hutu rebel movements (For Ntaganda, see Militant Leadership Monitor, August 31, 2012). FARDC is known for its indiscipline, poor morale and habitual shortages of food, ammunition and salaries.

Both CNDP factions were given refuge by Rwanda and Uganda, which ignored DRC extradition requests for Makenga and others (Africa Confidential, July 7, 2022). The CNDP agreed to a peace accord brokered in Nairobi on March 23, 2009 that saw many of its fighters integrated into the FARDC. Makenga was made a colonel in FARDC and served in Sud Kivu (Riftvalley.net, 2018; Le Monde, April 7, 2023).

The M23

On April 4, 2012, Ntaganda and 300 loyalists deserted the DRC but took losses in a clash with FARDC in the Rutshuru district (ChimpReports, February 6, 2017). Makenga, then second-in-command of DRC operations against the Hutu FDLR, followed Ntaganda by deserting in May. With his experience, he was made a general in the new M23 movement and took military command of the rebel force. Joseph Kabila suspended joint operations with Rwanda when the number of desertions to M23 became critical.

The new formation’s name, M23, derived from its demand for the full implementation of the March 23, 2009 accord between the DRC and the CNDP, which the DRC government was backing away from. Fuelling the new insurgency was the government’s failure to stabilize the eastern Congo and its inability to provide services to local people.

In November 2012, Makenga attracted international attention when UN defenders fled Goma and his forces briefly captured the city, the capital of Nord Kivu. It was apparently a step too far for his backers; visits from Rwandan Army chief Lieutenant General Charles Kayonga and top Ugandan officers encouraged Makenga to withdraw (ChimpReports, February 6, 2017).

Makenga claims to have taken advantage of FARDC’s corruption to equip his force: “When the Kinshasa government buys new weapons, I also get a share of it through my own contacts within the Congolese national army” (New African, February 15, 2013).

Makenga was sanctioned by the US in November 2012 for “contributing to the conflict in the DRC” (US Treasury Department, November 13, 2012).  Specifically, Makenga was cited for committing or being responsible for murder, rape of children as young as eight, kidnapping and forcible recruitment of children in Makenga’s Rutshuru home territory (UNSC, October 29, 20; BBC Africa, November 7, 2013; New African, February 15, 2013). According to Navi Pillay, then U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights: “The leaders of the M23 figure among the worst perpetrators of human rights violations in the Democratic Republic of Congo, or in the world for that matter” (UN News, June 19, 2012).

M23 Defeat and Split – 2013

Factionalism disrupted M23 operations, preventing the group from exploiting its successes in Nord Kivu. Makenga was deeply involved in the splits, first coming to blows with a faction led by Bishop Jean-Marie Runiga Lugerero. In February 2013, Bishop Runiga, other M23 leaders and several hundred fighters were given refuge in Rwanda after intense fighting with the Makenga faction (East African, July 13, 2013).

Makenga’s forces also clashed with those of Bosco Ntaganda in March 2013 after Makenga learned Ntaganda was planning to have him killed. Ntaganda’s attack on Makenga’s base was repulsed with heavy casualties, forcing Ntaganda and 200 men to also take refuge in Rwanda. Ntaganda turned himself in to the US Embassy in Kigali and was extradited to face an ICC proceeding in the Hague (Al-Jazeera, November 5, 2013; ChimpReports, February 6, 2017).

The Terminator on Trial: Bosco Ntaganda at the ICC

In November 2013 it was Makenga’s turn to flee Nord Kivu after defeat at the hands of FARDC and the UN’s Force Intervention Brigade. Rather than Rwanda, Makenga and other members of M23 crossed into Uganda, where they surrendered to authorities. The collapse of M23 through infighting and external military pressure led to the Kampala-brokered Declarations of Nairobi ceasefire agreement signed on December 12, 2013 by the DRC Government and the M23 movement.

Reviving the M23

In November 2016 Makenga left a demobilization camp in Uganda, crossed into Nord Kivu and began recruiting from Tutsi refugee camps in an effort to revive the M23 (ChimpReports [Kampala], November 13, 2016). He was joined there by former CNDP fighters who left their cantonment in Uganda.

Beginning with a small group of 400 men, Makenga eventually relaunched the M23 rebellion in November 2021. A new offensive took large parts of Nord Kivu before a ceasefire in November 2022. Makenga, however, accused the DRC authorities of insincerity: “If they desire peace, we will achieve it together. If they choose war, we will fight. That is our stance” (Igihe [Kigali], July 7, 2023).

Retaking Nord Kivu – 2024-2025

A July 2024 report by the UNSC Group of Experts presented evidence that the UPDF and Ugandan military intelligence were actively supporting Makenga and other M23 leaders. It also claimed there were 3,000 to 4,000 Rwandans fighting alongside M23, putting Rwanda in “de facto control” of M23 operations (UNSC, June 4). Uganda rejected the claims, while Kigali insisted that the DRC was financing and fighting alongside the FDLR; Rwanda was thus only acting in self-defense (AFP, July 10, 2024; al-Jazeera, July 9, 2024).

DRC Wazalendo Militia near Rutshuru, 2022 (Moses Sawasawa/AP)

Besides FARDC and the FDLR, Makenga’s M23 are also confronted by the Wazalendo (Kiswahili – “patriots), local militias traditionally known as Mayi-Mayi and nominally aligned with the DRC government. Among these are Guidon Shimiray Mwissa’s Nduma defense du Congo – Renové (NDC-R), Janvier Karairi’s Alliance des patriotes pour un Congo libre et souverain (APCLS) and the mostly Hutu Collectif des Mouvements pour le Changement-Forces de Défense du Peuple’ (CMC-FDP). All these loosely-organized, drug-fuelled Mayi-Mayi groups are feared by local communities and are known for brutality, extortion and mass rape. [1]

Makenga was sentenced to death in absentia, by a Congolese military court on August 8, 2024. The M23’s military leader was one of 26 armed-group leaders condemned after a trial, including Corneille Nangaa, political leader of the rebel Congo River Alliance (which includes M23), and M23 political chief Bertrand Bisimwa (al-Jazeera, August 9). The death penalty in the DRC had been under a moratorium since 2003, but was restored in March 2024.

As the M23 closed in on Goma in 2024, a FARDC spokesman claimed the M23 had blocked legitimate trade routes through Goma to focus on smuggling tanatalum supplies into Rwanda, a claim denied by Rwandan authorities (Bloomberg News, March 15, 2024).

Makenga launched a final offensive on Goma on January 23, in which his forces, allegedly supported by Rwandan troops, quickly broke through defenders that included FARDC troops, FDLR fighters, Wazalendo gunmen, peacekeepers from the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and Romanian mercenaries (for the latter, see MLM, June 27, 2024). By January 30, the conquest of Goma was complete; at the same time other M23 units were seizing a number of sites in Sud Kivu producing tantalum, tin and gold.

Goma lies in the shadow of the active volcano Mount Nyiragongo

Goma Again

Some 2900 people were slaughtered in the M23 conquest of Goma, which was accompanied by the escape of hundreds of prisoners from Goma’s Munzenze prison; over 100 female prisoners were immediately raped and then left to burn alive when the escapees set fire to the facility (BBC, February 5). Bizarrely, photos of the murdered women being carried out in body bags surfaced during Donald Trump’s May 21 Oval Office meeting with South African president Cyril Ramaphosa, when they were produced by Trump as visual proof of a “white genocide” in South Africa (Reuters, May 22; IBTimes, May 28). M23 forces then entered Bukavu, capital of Sud Kivu, on February 16, taking full control of the city two days later (Al-Jazeera, February 16).

Residents greet a vehicle with M23 fighters on it in Bukavu, 2025 (Amani Alimasi/AFP)

The Hutu Mayi Mayi CMC-FDP attacked Goma on April 11 in an attempt to drive out the M23, but were repulsed. M23 spokesmen claimed South African peacekeepers supported the assault (Congovirtuel, April 13; RFI, April 13). Violent crime has plagued the city since the January conquest with M23 fighters struggling to maintain order.

Ex-president Joseph Kabila, accused since February by President Tshisekedi of being behind the M23 offensive, and apparently back in favor with Makenga and Corneille Nangaa, returned to Goma on May 25 from a self-imposed exile in South Africa and Rwanda that began in 2023. Nangaa announced Kabila was welcome “in the only part of the country where arbitrariness, political persecution, death sentences, tribalism, discrimination, hate speech… do not exist” (New Times [Kigali], May 26).

The DRC government believes Kabila is now positioning himself to assume leadership of the rebel forces (Reuters, May 28). Kabila’s return is certain to complicate the US-sponsored negotiations between the competing factions in the DRC and the mineral deal desired by the Trump administration (Kivu Morning Post, May 27; Reuters, May 28). Just as Joseph Kabila’s father, Laurent-Désiré Kabila, had once labelled Congolese Tutsis as “foreigners,” the leader of President Tshisekedi’s Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS) declared on May 25 that Joseph Kabila was “not Congolese… Let him leave the Congolese to deal with their own problems. He, a Rwandan subject whose rule was imposed on us, must leave the Congolese alone” (France 24, May 29).

Conclusion

While American military intervention to secure critical mineral supplies in the Congo appears unlikely at present, Trump supporter and mercenary chief Erik Prince has been engaged in working out an agreement with Congo’s finance ministry that would see private military contractors assigned to tax collection duties in the mineral sector and anti-smuggling operations (Reuters, April 17, 2025). There are reports that a recruiter allegedly working for Prince has been approaching former French Legionnaires regarding military contract work in the Congo (Africa Intelligence, May 12).

Rwandan media has accused Belgium of deploying two companies of commandos to fight against M23 alongside FARDC, FDLR and Wazalendo (Great Lakes Eye, March 24; Great Lakes Eye, May 7). Eight Belgian soldiers, including a “Sergeant Jimmy Luis Flander,” are said to have been killed while operating in Nord Kivu (Great Lakes Eye, April 3). This may be part of an effort to divert attention from international accusations that Kigali is supporting M23; Belgian Foreign minister Maxime Prévot described the assertions as “grotesque fake news” and disinformation designed to “undermine Belgium’s image, to increase tensions and to legitimise a certain interventionism” (Belga News Agency, March 26).

Sultani Makenga (Chrispin Mvano)

Sultani Makenga’s career as a warlord, endlessly shifting from one faction to another in a process of continual self-enrichment, is emblematic of the interminable nature of the conflict in the Congo. The ceaseless struggle to control its abundant and strategically important wealth invites a steady stream of foreign interests willing to partner with corrupt businessmen, power hungry politicians and uniformed war criminals. Where the search for oil and gas reserves fueled international conflicts in the recent past, new elements are now sought after to achieve global dominance in a technological age. The struggle to possess these mineral properties, antagonized by post-colonial ethnic conflicts, has brought only death and displacement to millions of residents of Nord Kivu, with no end in sight. Men like Sultani Makenga, indulged and supported by parties (Western, African and Eastern) that wish to keep their hands clean of the blood of impoverished Africans, are ultimately the agents, not causes, of the resource-driven disease that ravages the Congo.

Note

  1. Mercenary leader Major Mike Hoare, who led his 5 Commando in the Kivu region in the 1960s, attributed the foundation of the Mayi Mayi movement to Chinese-trained revolutionary Pierre Mulele (1929-1968), who encouraged his Simba followers to chant “Mayi Mayi” (water water) or “Mayi Mulele” as they entered battle. The chant was intended to combine with magical water dispensed to the fighters to render them immune to bullets: “This, together with liberal doses of marijuana, rendered the recipient insensible to pain and totally incapable of intelligent action” (Hoare, Congo Mercenary, London, 1967). The practice was, in fact, an adaptation of earlier rituals used in Central Africa to overcome the superior firepower of colonial forces.

 

Drone Attacks on Port Sudan Jeopardize Plan for Russian Red Sea Naval Base

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Eurasia Daily Monitor Vol. 22, Jamestown Foundation, Washington DC.

Andrew McGregor

May 28, 2025

Executive Summary:

  • Russia’s plans to create a naval base on the Sudanese coast of the Red Sea have been upset by drone attacks launched on Port Sudan in early May. Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces claimed responsibility for the attack.
  • The destruction of Port Sudan’s infrastructure demonstrates that Sudan’s domestic instability would threaten a Russian base, potentially jeopardizing a broader arms-for-access agreement that included Sudan’s acquisition of Russian warplanes.
  • Sudan accused the United Arab Emirates (UAE) of supplying the People’s Republic of China (PRC)-made drones used in the attack. The UAE and the PRC may be acting to curb Russia’s naval ambitions.

Fuel depot in Port Sudan burns after drone attack, May 5, 2025 (Xinhua).

Russia’s hope of establishing a naval base along Sudan’s Red Sea coast took a serious blow when drones shattered infrastructure at its proposed site from May 4 to 8 (Sudan Tribune, May 7, 9). The week-long drone attack, believed to have been carried out by Sudan’s rebel paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), exposed the vulnerability of the port’s proposed site to damage related to domestic instability. The alleged involvement of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as the supplier of the RSF’s People’s Republic of China (PRC)-made drones complicates the international implications of the devastating attack.

General ‘Abd al-Fatah al-Burhan, May 6, 2025 (Sudan Tribune)

Following the destruction of the Khartoum/Omdurman capital region and its industrial base early in Sudan’s civil war in 2023, Port Sudan has acted as the political and military headquarters of the Sudanese state. Port Sudan operates under the unelected Transitional Sovereignty Council (TSC) and its dominant partner, the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF), commanded by General ‘Abd al-Fatah al-Burhan. Both the RSF and the UAE reject what they refer to as “the Port Sudan Authority” as the legitimate government of Sudan (Mada Masr, May 9). The city hosts Sudan’s most important port, its last functioning civil airport, a naval base, and a military airport. Crude oil from Sudan and South Sudan is exported from Port Sudan, and refined petroleum products for domestic use are stored there. It is the only delivery point for desperately needed aid and relief supplies in the war-ravaged nation.

Smoke billowed from the Sudanese Navy’s base at Flamingo Bay, 15 kilometers (9.3 miles) north of Port Sudan’s commercial port, after being struck by drones for five successive days in early May (Sudan Tribune, May 7, 9). Satellite imagery published by Russian site Insider.ru revealed what appeared to be large-scale destruction at the base (Insider.ru, May 13). Flamingo Bay is the proposed site for the new Russian naval base (AIS, March 24, 2022; see EDM, July 8, 2024, March 6, April 30; New Arab, May 8).

Flamingo Bay naval facility, north of Port Sudan (GoogleEarth)

The destruction of oil depots at Port Sudan has created immediate fuel shortages and rising prices in government-held territory. The port is suffering from shortages of food and clean water, blackouts, and looting by desperate citizens (Radio Dabanga, May 8). Thousands have fled the city as civil authorities warn of an environmental and health disaster (Sudan Tribune, May 6; Mada Masr, May 9). Drones also struck radar installations, warehouses, and munitions stores at Osman Digna Air Base in Port Sudan, causing a series of explosions (Sudan TV, May 5). The strikes halted civilian air traffic, including humanitarian aid flights, by causing heavy damage at the adjacent Port Sudan International Airport (Sudan Tribune, May 7; Radio Dabanga, May 8). Other targets included General al-Burhan’s residence and the Marina Hotel, which often houses foreign diplomats (Mada Masr, May 9). Swarms of drones struck the historic Red Sea port of Suakin, some 50 kilometers (31 miles) south of Port Sudan, and the eastern city of Kassala on May 4 to 6 (Xinhua, May 6). Qatar, the UAE’s regional rival, is redeveloping Suakin in a $4 billion project.

Osman Digna military airport in flames, May 4, 2025

As the attacks continued, Moscow expressed “deep concern over the ongoing bloody armed confrontation” in Sudan (TASS, May 5). Despite three years of Russian attacks on civilian targets and infrastructure in Ukraine, the Kremlin statement added that “Russia believes that carrying out attacks on civilian infrastructure is unacceptable” (TASS, May 5). The Russian embassy in Sudan reported operations at its temporary embassy in Port Sudan were unaffected by the bombing, saying that “the situation is tense, naturally, but not critical” (RIA Novosti, May 6).

Other than drones, the RSF does not have aerial assets or personnel operating closer to Port Sudan than Omdurman, 670 kilometers (416 miles) away. The attack’s precise targeting suggests that the RSF obtained or was given accurate coordinates by means normally unavailable to the technologically weak paramilitary. The operational range of the PRC-made Sunflower-200 one-way attack drones, which military analysts believe the RSF used, is 1,500 to 2,000 kilometers (932 to 1,242 miles), with a 30- to 40-kilogram payload (Defense Express, May 6; Cobtec International, accessed May 21). The UAE obtained the Sunflower-200 in January 2024 (Janes, January 25, 2024).

Sunflower-200 Drone (Cobtec)

The commander of the Red Sea military region and the Sudanese Navy, Lieutenant General Mahjub Bushra, claimed that drones were launched from UAE military facilities at Berbera in Somaliland and Bosaso in Puntland (Sudan TV, May 5). Puntland’s Minister of Information, Mahmoud Aydid Dirir, described the accusation that the UAE operated missiles from Bosaso as part of “a broader effort to undermine Puntland’s reputation and its ongoing fight against terrorism” (Mogadishu24, May 8).

SAF intelligence presented another scenario, suggesting the drones may have entered RSF-controlled regions of Sudan via the Libyan desert, past remote Jabal ‘Uwaynat (where Libya, Sudan, and Egypt meet) and into Darfur to be distributed to strategic launch points further east (AIS, June 13, 2017; France24.com, April 19; Mada Masr, May 9). Another possible route for the RSF to obtain the drones would be through the Amdjarass airstrip in Chad, close to RSF-held territory in Sudan. UAE transport aircraft make regular trips to Amdjarass. Many of the flights are believed to be delivering arms, though the UAE claims they deliver only humanitarian supplies (Reuters, December 12, 2024; Africa Defense Forum, January 7).

Sudan cut off diplomatic relations with Abu Dhabi on May 6 because of their alleged involvement in the attacks, denouncing it for “state terrorism” while threatening retaliation (Middle East Eye; Sudan Tribune, May 8; Mada Masr, May 9). RSF sources confirmed the paramilitary’s responsibility for the strikes on Port Sudan, Kassala, and oil depots in Kosti (White Nile Province) as part of a plan to take the war to Port Sudan and the relatively untouched north of Sudan (Mada Masr, May 9).

An indefinite delay in the construction of a Russian naval facility at Port Sudan due to the attacks will likely jeopardize the Sudanese state’s planned acquisition of Russian warplanes, such as the Su-30 and Su-35, in exchange for the use of the port. The potential loss of Russian interest in Sudan could work in the PRC’s interest. Even though PRC-made drones caused the damage to Port Sudan, the Sudanese state (TSC/SAF) has only blamed the intermediary supplier, the UAE. If Russia backs off from the port deal and its reciprocal arms supplies, Beijing may be able to step in to make arrangements with the Sudanese state (TSC/SAF).

The PRC is obliged, as a signatory to the United Nations’ Arms Trade Treaty, to prevent the UAE from selling PRC arms to a banned entity such as the RSF. It seems improbable that the PRC is unaware of how the UAE disposes of its hi-tech military imports. This raises the question of whether the UAE is mediating the transfer of PRC drones through established supply networks to the RSF to deter the expansion of Russian influence and facilities in Africa. The PRC has its own ambitions in Africa, as well as a naval base in Djibouti at the southern entrance to the Red Sea.

It is uncertain whether Russia has supplied Sudan with advanced air defense systems. Sudanese Major General Mutasim ‘Abd al-Qadir indicated that Russia has discretely supplied defense systems, while Sudanese intelligence sources indicate that Sudan turned down a Russian offer to deploy a S-400 air defense system at Port Sudan due to fears of negative U.S. and European reactions (Mada Masr, May 9; Insider.ru, May 13). Advanced air defense systems would be essential for the existence of a Russian base at Port Sudan, but would also raise issues regarding the touchy issue of Sudanese sovereignty.

The UAE has taken advantage of Russian naval base troubles. After the post-Assad government of Syria canceled 2019’s 49-year agreement with Russia’s Stroynasgas to manage the port of Tartus, the UAE’s DP World signed a memorandum of agreement to take over management of the port on May 16 with a projected $800 million investment (TASS, January 21; SANA, May 16). The Russian facility at Port Sudan was intended in part to replace the loss of Tartus. As the feasibility of establishing a Russian base in the Red Sea begins to diminish under the weight of domestic insecurity and foreign intervention, Moscow may intensify discussions to create an alternative naval base at the Libyan port of Tobruk.

Russia Increasing Military Presence in Africa by Reviving Desert Airbase in the Libyan Sahara

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Andrew McGregor

Eurasia Daily Monitor, Jamestown Foundation, Washington DC

April 17, 2025

Executive Summary: 

  • Russia’s rehabilitation of an abandoned airbase in the Libyan desert offers an opportunity to create a reliable line of supply to Russian forces operating in West Africa.
  • A Russian military presence close to the borders of Egypt, Sudan, and Chad could make Moscow a player in regional politics and security activities.
  • Moscow continues to feel its way through a complex system of regional rivalries and alliances that leaves it open to counter-moves by interested parties in the West.

One of former Libyan leader Mu’ammar Qaddafi’s greatest foreign policy failures was undoubtedly his 1980s attempt to use his Soviet-armed military to spread Libyan rule and influence in the African Sahel region. Now, Russia is focused on a similar effort in the Sahel, using the same remote airbase in south-eastern Libya that Qaddafi used to launch his offensive into neighboring Chad. The airbase at Matan al-Sarra is the latest addition to a network of Libyan bases hosting Russian military operations and arms shipments. These include al-Khadim, al-Jufra, Brak al-Shati, al-Wigh, Tamanhint, and al-Qardabiya (Middle East Eye, July 10, 2023; Libya Observer, January 15).

Matan al-Sarra Airbase

Matan al-Sarra is close to the historically strategic Kufra region, a series of small oases (see Terrorism Monitor, February 23, 2012, April 6, 2018; May 5, 2011). Today, Kufra is an important staging point for illegal African migrants making for the Mediterranean coast and ultimately Europe (Libyan News Agency, April 7).

Kufra and the rest of south-eastern Libya is now controlled by self-appointed “Field Marshal” Khalifa Haftar, commander of the so-called “Libyan National Army” (LNA, a.k.a. Libyan Arab Armed Forces). LNA is a composite force of militias, mercenaries, tribal groups, and more formal military formations supporting one of the two rival governments in Libya, the Tobruk-based Libyan House of Representatives (MENA Research Center, August 19, 2024; AIS Special Report, November 14, 2017).

Haftar’s 2020 Russian-backed attempt to seize Tripoli and bring Libya under his sole control with the aid of Wagner Group mercenaries was a failure, owing in part to the Government of National Accord’s​​ (GNA) effective use of Turkish drones (see EDM, June 11, 2020, March 12, 2024). Rather than drop his alliance with Russia, Haftar instead decided to intensify relations with Moscow in the hope of obtaining more advanced weapons and other military materiel. Permitting Russian use of the airbase in south-eastern Cyrenaïca is part of this process.

Mobile Chadian Troops in the Toyota War, 1988

Before receiving support from Moscow for his military campaigns in Libya, Haftar had a history of cooperating with the United States. In 1987, after losing a military campaign as the then-commander of Libyan forces in Chad, Haftar was captured and disowned by Qaddafi (Libya Tribune, October 29, 2022; al-Arabiya, May 24, 2014). Valuable specimens of Soviet aircraft and radar abandoned by the Libyans were recovered from the battlefield by a US Special Operations group, temporarily damaging Libyan relations with Moscow (ARSOF, March 2022). By 1990, Haftar had agreed to move to the United States with 300 other Libyan prisoners, where he became a U.S. citizen and alleged asset for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in its efforts to overthrow Qaddafi, who continued to be backed by the Soviet Union until its collapse in 1991 (Libya Tribune, October 31, 2022; France24.com, May 19, 2014; al-Arabiya, May 24, 2014). Haftar returned to Libya in 2011, where he established a power base in Cyrenaïca against the internationally recognized Tripoli-based GNA, which controls most of northwestern Libya (Tripolitania) with the military assistance of Türkiye.

US Chinook Slings an Abandoned Russian-Made Libyan Mi-24 Hind from the Chadian Desert, June 11, 1988

The new six square kilometer (2.3 square mile) base at Matan al-Sarra will provide a refueling stop for Russian aircraft heading into areas of West Africa where the Russian Africa Corps is active. It is located close to the Egyptian and Sudanese borders. Most importantly, the base lies just north of Libya’s border with Chad, the latest target for Russian influence since the recent withdrawal of French and U.S. military forces stationed there. Chad’s discontent with the West follows sustained Russian influence operations and the perceived inability of its Western allies to provide effective military aid in the struggle against regional Islamist insurgencies (see EDM, June 25, 2024). Kremlin objectives in Africa are furthered by an influence and propaganda campaign that uses regional influencers and social media to encourage belief in Russia as a viable and sympathetic alternative to the West for economic and security partnerships  (Le Monde, August 6, 2023; RUSI Europe, October 25, 2023; MLM, December 4, 2019).

Troops of the LNA’s Tariq bin Zayid Battalion

Russia began transferring Syrian troops and contractors to Matan al-Sarra last December, where they were engaged alongside Russian personnel in repair and reconstruction efforts at the long-neglected base (The New Arab, January 28). Once a means of projecting Libyan power south into Chad and Sudan, the base lost its raison d’être in 2011 and was abandoned when Qaddafi’s death ended Libyan designs on the African interior. The region around the base, the supply line from Tobruk, and the route to Sudan have been secured by the LNA’s Tariq bin Ziyad Battalion, under the command of one of Khalifa Haftar’s sons, Saddam Haftar (Libya Observer, January 15). With daily temperature highs of over 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 degrees Celsius) for six months of the year and almost zero annual precipitation, service at the isolated base will likely be considered a hardship posting for Russian personnel.

Russian operatives have been in contact with local tribal communities in the region to form useful alliances (Libya Observer, January 15). The area around Matan al-Sarra is dominated by the Tubu, the so-called “Black nomads of the Sahara” (as described by French soldier and ethnologist Jean Chapelle in his 1958 work Nomades noirs du Sahara) who were displaced from Kufra in the 1840s by their Arab rivals, the Zuwaya. Russian personnel will likely attempt to curry the favor of both groups as aligning with one against the other would create unwanted turmoil and insecurity.

A Russian presence at Matan al-Sarra would provide Moscow with the ability to ship arms to Sudanese or Chadian territory quietly. Even though Moscow has shifted most of its support in the Sudan conflict from the rebel Rapid Support Forces (RSF) to the rival Sudanese Armed Forces/Transitional Sovereignty Council (SAF/TSC), its forces in Libya do not appear to be interfering with Khalifa Haftar’s supply of arms and vehicles to the RSF (Middle East Eye, January 25, 2024; Agenzia Nova [Rome], January 17). Moscow likely wishes to avoid alienating the RSF and lose an opportunity to establish influence in a possible RSF-ruled state in Darfur, the home of most RSF fighters (Sudan Tribune, March 4).

Moscow’s overtures to the Chadian military regime are complicated by Moscow’s attempt to play both sides of the Sudanese conflict (see EDM, July 8, 2024). In late March, the SAF command declared that Chadian airports at N’Djamena and Amdjarras are now “legitimate targets for the Sudanese Armed Forces” following allegations that Chad is using them to forward arms from the United Arab Emirates to RSF forces inside Sudan (Middle East Eye, January 25, 2024; AFP, March 24).

Russian contractors have been heavily involved in gold-mining operations across the border in Sudanese Darfur to help pay for its war against Ukraine and may seek to expand into the Tubu-controlled Kalanga region (450 kilometers (280 miles) south-west of Kufra) in the foothills of the Tibesti Mountains along the border with Chad (Agenzia Nova [Rome], January 23). Chadian forces carried out airstrikes in the region last summer against Chadian rebels gathering there after working as mercenaries in Libya (Libya Security Monitor, August 22, 2024). The strikes came at the same time as Major General Hassan Matuq al-Zama led the LNA’s 128th Reinforced Brigade in operations to secure the border with Niger and Chad and to displace armed groups in Kalanga involved in smuggling and gold mining (Libya Review, August 19, 2024; Atalyar [Madrid], August 21, 2024).

Russian Deputy Defense Minister Yunus-Bek Yevkurov and Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar (Libya Observer)

The United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) has been working in the last year to develop relations with Khalifa Haftar and encourage military unification in Libya to discourage Libyan partnerships with Russia. In late February, AFRICOM conducted training exercises in Libya involving U.S. B-52H Stratofortress bombers and Libyan military forces representing both rival Libyan governments designed to promote Libyan military unification while simultaneously slowing the growth of Russian influence (Libya Observer, March 4; Agenzia Nova, March 7). The exercise came amid regular contacts between Haftar and Russian deputy defense minister Yunus-Bek Yevkurov (responsible for Russian African Corps operations) and a growing number of Russians stationed at the LNA-controlled Brak al-Shati airbase in central Libya (Defense News, March 14). 

Russian operations in Africa continue to be characterized by a certain diplomatic inconsistency that may be due in part to inexperience in the region and unfamiliarity with the motives and methods of their would-be partners. Besides trying to keep a foot in both camps in the Sudan conflict, Moscow continues to attempt to develop relations with the Tripoli-based GNA, which only encourages Khalifa Haftar to leave himself open to U.S. overtures. A failure to make firm and visible commitments makes Kremlin strategic policy in the region a work in progress, susceptible to local manipulation as well as countermoves by Russia’s global rivals.