Author: MIL-OSI Publisher

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Samir Ramzy, Researcher, Helwan University

Sudan has been embroiled in a civil war between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces since April 2023, sparked by a power struggle between the two parties. The war has displaced more than 14 million people. Over half the population of about 50 million is facing acute levels of hunger.

Several mediation initiatives have been launched since the start of the war, with limited success. The African Union has also been unable to get the main warring parties to agree to a permanent ceasefire.

The four countries leading the main peace mediation effort (known as the Quad) are the US, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. They issued a joint statement in September 2025, calling for a ceasefire in Sudan and offering a roadmap to end the internal conflict.

I’ve been researching Sudan for over a decade, and in my view, these countries’ capacity to deliver a final political settlement for Sudan is severely constrained.

The prospects for peace rest on the resolution of three factors:

• the sharp differences between the Sudanese army and the Quad over who should participate in post-war politics

• a widening rift between the main protagonists in the war on the terms of ending it

• internal divisions within the Quad – particularly between Egypt, the UAE and Saudi Arabia – over how to balance support for the army, curb Islamist influence and manage competing regional interests.

The Quad’s plan called for an immediate ceasefire, a three-month humanitarian truce and an inclusive political process to resolve disputes within nine months.

The statement was initially welcomed by the Rapid Support Forces and Sudan’s army leaders.

However, follow-up meetings between the Quad and representatives of the warring parties have failed to translate any of these proposals into action.

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Read more: Sudan’s rebel force has declared a parallel government: what this means for the war

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Meanwhile, the paramilitary troops and their allies captured the city of El-Fasher in North Darfur after a bloody 500-day siege. This was the army’s last major stronghold in Darfur.

Darfur encompasses nearly 20% of Sudan’s territory. It borders Libya, Chad and the Central African Republic. The capture has fuelled concerns of a de facto partition of the country in the western region.

Against this backdrop, the Quad’s latest initiative seems unlikely to achieve more than a fragile ceasefire.

The obstacles

Efforts to broker peace in Sudan are hindered by three key challenges.

1. Diverging agendas between the Quad and the Sudanese army

Despite broad similarities between the Quad’s roadmap and a proposal the army submitted in March 2025 to the United Nations, key differences remain.

The core disagreement lies in the design of the political process to follow the ceasefire. The Quad insists that Islamist factions should be excluded from consultations over fears that these factions have close ties to terrorist groups and Iran. The army’s proposal, by contrast, opposes the exclusion of any party.

The military leadership has alliances with elements of the former Islamic Movement. Its fighters still help stabilise the army’s frontlines.

2. A widening gap between the army and Rapid Support Forces on the terms of ending the war

The army’s roadmap implicitly allows the paramilitary troops to remain in parts of Darfur for up to nine months, provided that local authorities consent. However, it also requires the withdrawal of the group from El-Fasher and North Kordofan.

The Rapid Support Forces’ behaviour on the ground reveals a very different mindset. Rather than preparing to withdraw, the group has expanded militarily in North Kordofan and intensified its drone attacks on Khartoum and other regions.

At its core, the dispute reflects conflicting end goals. The paramilitary group seeks to enter negotiations as an equal to the army. It wants a comprehensive restructuring of the armed forces. The army insists that it should be the only unit that supervises any reform of Sudan’s military institutions – the very issue that triggered the outbreak of war in 2023.

3. Internal divisions within the Quad

The Quad’s own cohesion has been undermined by internal rifts that have derailed several meetings. The most visible divide lies between Egypt and the UAE.

Cairo leans towards the army, seeing it as the guarantor of Sudan’s state institutions against collapse. Abu Dhabi prioritises dismantling the influence of Islamist leaders as the main precondition for peace.

Saudi Arabia is wary of Emirati involvement, especially since the Sudanese army has repeatedly rejected UAE mediation and the Rapid Support Forces has attacked Egyptian policy towards Sudan.

Washington has tried to manage these tensions by limiting direct mediation roles for Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE while keeping them within the broader negotiation framework. These nations have significant leverage over the warring factions.

How Sudan got here

Sudan’s fragile transition began after the ousting of long-time ruler Omar al-Bashir in 2019.

An uneasy power-sharing arrangement between the army and civilian leaders collapsed in 2021 when army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Rapid Support Forces leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, jointly seized control in a coup. Their alliance fractured two years later and sparked the 2023 civil war.

Despite international pressure, neither side has given in or gained a decisive advantage since.

The conflict has been devastating for Sudan’s population of 50 million. Death toll reports since the start of the war have varied between 20,000 and 150,000 people. The country is facing the world’s worst displacement crisis, and health and education systems have collapsed. Further, more than 12 million girls and women, and an increasing number of men, are at risk of sexual violence.

Is breakthrough still possible?

Despite existing divisions, shifting dynamics on the ground could still produce a limited breakthrough.

The worst scenario for the military would be the paramilitary group’s renewed advance into territories it had been pushed out of.

That prospect might push army leaders to accept a preliminary ceasefire. This would allow the army to regroup and consolidate existing positions without conceding ground politically.

For the Rapid Support Forces, the calculation is different. After spending more than 18 months battling to capture El-Fasher, the group recognises that advancing further towards the capital would come at a high human and political cost. A temporary truce, therefore, could allow it to entrench its governance structures in Darfur and strengthen its military presence there.

In this sense, a short-term ceasefire remains the most practical outcome for both sides. Washington’s eagerness to secure conflict-ending deals is likely to push the Quad towards this scenario.

But a final political settlement in Sudan remains distant.

For now, the most any diplomatic initiative can achieve is to pause the fighting, not to end the war, as it remains difficult to bridge the political gaps between Sudanese powers.

– Peace in Sudan? 3 reasons why mediation hasn’t worked so far
– https://theconversation.com/peace-in-sudan-3-reasons-why-mediation-hasnt-worked-so-far-268541

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Olivier Walther, Associate Professor in Geography, University of Florida

A coalition of jihadist groups affiliated with al-Qaida have laid siege to landlocked Mali’s capital. For over a month, they have attacked convoys supplying Bamako with fuel, putting considerable pressure on the military junta that has been ruling the country for five years.

The security situation has deteriorated to such an extent that the United States has asked all its citizens to leave the country immediately. After more than 10 years of civil war, will the jihadist blockade lead to the fall of the capital? The Conversation Africa spoke to researchers from the Sahel Research Group at the University of Florida.

What is the current situation in Bamako?

Attacks on transport infrastructure and convoys travelling between urban centres in the Sahel region have increased dramatically since the late 2010s. Our research shows that certain transport routes in Mali are particularly targeted by jihadist groups. One is the route connecting Bamako to Gao, a strategic economic centre with a large military base. These attacks are combined with the blockade of other urban centres like Farabougou, Timbuktu, Kayes and, more recently, Bamako.

Bamako, which is in the south-western part of the country, has experienced jihadist attacks before, notably in 2015 and in 2024. But those were limited terrorist strikes. The current blockade reflects much greater ambition and capacity by the jihadists. In July, coordinated attacks in south-western Mali marked a new stage of Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin’s southward expansion.

For weeks now, Bamako has been isolated from its external sources of supply, particularly fuel, which must be imported from its coastal neighbours. The government was recently forced to declare the closure of schools and universities due to lack of transport.

Why Bamako?

Bamako is by far Mali’s most important city in terms of population, economy and politics. Its fall would have catastrophic consequences and determine the country’s future trajectory.

With a population of 4.24 million in 2025, according to Africapolis, the Bamako urban agglomeration is more than 10 times greater than the second-largest city, Sikasso. Bamako’s importance is not only demographic. All executive functions are concentrated there, including ministries, the national television broadcaster and the international airport.

Bamako also accounts for a large share of the national economy. Our studies suggest that more than 90% of formal businesses are located in the Bamako metropolitan area.

Capturing Bamako would obviate the need to capture larger territories and could decide the fate of the Malian conflict. Control of a capital often serves as the de facto criterion for political recognition. For instance, despite commanding little beyond Kinshasa in his final years, Mobutu Sese Seko remained recognised as Zaire’s leader until Laurent-Désiré Kabila took the capital in May 1997.

Capturing the capital city has also been the central step in the resolution of many African civil wars. In 2011, the capture of Abidjan by the forces of Alassane Ouattara, France and the United Nations brought an end to the second Ivorian civil war.

Would the capture of an African capital by jihadists, rather than by conventional rebels, trigger an external intervention by western or African powers? This is unlikely. With the exception of its partners in the Alliance of Sahel States, Mali’s government is very isolated diplomatically.

France was forced to depart just a few years ago, and was stung by its deep unpopularity in the region. A new French intervention seems unimaginable. The US is currently more interested in transactions than in new interventions, especially in Africa.

Mali’s break with the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) would also seem to prevent a coordinated regional response. Even Burkina Faso and Niger, Mali’s neighbours and its partners in the Sahel alliance, are bogged down with their own jihadist insurgency.

What then for Bamako and Mali?

Three broad scenarios seem imaginable:

• a military surge in which the Malian junta manages to break the blockade

• a negotiated settlement that would presumably lead to a new form of government

• political chaos following the fall of Bamako.

The first scenario would require a successful mass mobilisation by the military regime in power. With the help of the Alliance of Sahel States and most likely Russian mercenaries, Malian forces would need to concentrate in the Bamako metropolitan area and also regain control of key routes.

This strategy seems to us the least likely. Not just because of the limitations of the Malian military, but considering that very little fighting has taken place in urban areas in the Malian conflict. Timbuktu, Gao and Kidal have been variously conquered or “liberated” without fighting. Government forces, rebels and jihadists preferred to withdraw when their opponents advanced.

A second, perhaps more likely, scenario is some sort of a negotiated political settlement between Mali’s military authorities and jihadist actors. We have suggested for many years that a political agreement is the only way to end a conflict that cannot be won militarily by any of the parties.

Calls for dialogue have recently resurfaced and gained traction among religious, political and business leaders in Mali. However, the issue remains divisive. Prominent advocates for this option include Alioune Nouhoum Diallo, former president of the National Assembly, and Mossadeck Bally, president of the National Employers’ Council.

Proponents often cite experiences of settlements reached via dialogue between Islamists and state actors elsewhere in the region, particularly in parts of the Maghreb. Those cases, however, were shaped by very different traditions of state-Islam relations.

A negotiated political settlement in Mali would require substantial revisions to, or even abandonment of, the country’s constitutional principle of laïcité (secularism). Successive elites, including the current military, have refused to consider this. And given the jihadists’ upper hand, government would have to make concessions that would undercut its legitimacy.

That said, a mediated dialogue might be more likely should Bamako fall into the hands of the jihadists. Governing a city of that scale, and securing cross-border flows of fuel and trade, would almost certainly need negotiated arrangements with neighbouring states which are hostile to the jihadists. In such a scenario, jihadist groups might accept a less hostile governing authority as part of a pragmatic settlement. Potential figures to lead or broker such a process include the exiled Imam Mahmoud Dicko. Even in exile, he wields influence over Malian politics.

A final scenario is one in which the jihadist coalition conquers Bamako and displaces the current regime. While an entry into the city is now imaginable, it would be much less likely that the jihadists could form a cohesive government. The groups that form the coalition have a long and convoluted history of splits, mergers and rivalries. They also have a conflictual relationship with the Islamic State – Sahel Province, the Sahelian branch of the Islamic State, which is active in eastern Mali.

If the jihadist coalition were to gain control of the capital, it is more than likely that the Islamic State would demand to be involved in the exercise of national power. This could fuel rivalries between the two groups. Somalia and Afghanistan have both experienced versions of this scenario.

The highly fluid and confused situation makes predictions about the likelihood of any of these scenarios highly speculative. What does seem clearer is that the crisis at the heart of the Sahel is not likely to be resolved in the near future.

– Jihadists have blockaded Mali’s capital. What’s at stake
– https://theconversation.com/jihadists-have-blockaded-malis-capital-whats-at-stake-268692

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Oluwole Ojewale, Research Fellow, Obafemi Awolowo University, Regional Coordinator, Institute for Security Studies

When the military overthrew the democratically elected government in Mali in 2020, coup leader General Assimi Goita promised to root out jihadists in the north of the country. Mali had been struggling to defeat them for nearly a decade.

Multiple terrorist groups operate in Mali. An al Qaida-linked group known locally as Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) is the most lethal, considering the audacity and scale of its attacks. The group rejects the state’s authority, and seeks to impose its interpretation of Islam and sharia.

Despite the military government’s pledge to enhance security, there has been a 38% rise in violence directed at civilians in Mali in 2023, as reported by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data.

Human Rights Watch reports that Islamist armed groups carried out 326 attacks against civilians between 1 January and 31 October 2024, and 478 people were killed.

In September 2024, JNIM attacked Bamako’s international airport and a military barracks in the capital city.

After years of mounting attacks, Mali’s insurgency has entered a new phase. Violence has now diffused from northern and central Mali to southern Mali. JNIM’s blockade of southern Mali since September 2025 has cut off trade routes, starved towns, and tested the limits of the Malian state’s control over the landlocked country.

As a security scholar with a focus on west and central Africa, I have researched security in Mali on broader issues like terrorism and arms trafficking. I believe JNIM’s latest strategy is particularly dangerous because the objective is strategic, economic, psychological and political.

Such blockades are deliberate instruments of coercive governance and asymmetric warfare (a conflict between irregular combatants and the army), designed to weaken the military government, incite the public and possibly consolidate control.

My view is that the Malian military has been unable to dislodge the terrorists because the blockade zones are vast, semi-arid, and crisscrossed by ungoverned routes that defy easy surveillance. Many of these areas lie beyond the reach of effective state presence. There, the army’s movements are predictable and slow, while insurgents blend into local communities and forests with relative ease.

The terrain favours guerrilla tactics: narrow roads, bush paths and seasonal rivers create natural obstacles to mechanised military movement. Terrorist groups with motorbikes can easily get around.

The blockade

The blockade of southern Mali, which began in September 2025, has cut off the region from essential supplies. It’s creating severe humanitarian and economic consequences.

Mali recently suspended schools and universities due to a severe fuel scarcity caused by the blockade. The siege underscores the fact that the Malian army is ill-equipped, overstretched and strategically disadvantaged in countering evolving terrorist tactics.

The blockade is not a conventional military siege involving trenches or fortified positions. Instead, it operates as a networked disruption, blocking roads that link Mali to its coastal neighbours, particularly Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire.

These roads are vital arteries in Mali’s economy, serving as corridors for trade, fuel and humanitarian supplies. Cutting them off not only isolates communities but also undermines public confidence in the state’s ability to govern and secure its peripheries.

The army’s constraints

The inability of the Malian army to lift the blockades is rooted in the fact that it is fighting an irregular, asymmetric conflict against a mobile and deeply entrenched insurgent group. The Malian Armed Forces are structured for conventional warfare but are being drawn into a battle that requires flexibility, intelligence dominance, and rapid response capabilities.

JNIM, on the other hand, thrives on mobility and decentralisation. Its fighters move lightly, using motorcycles and small arms. They can strike swiftly and retreat into difficult terrain before state forces can respond.

The army also has logistical and operational shortcomings. As I’ve written elsewhere, Mali lacks military capabilities and cannot easily acquire them under current sanctions and international isolation.

Although the junta has sought help from military partnerships with Russia’s Wagner Group (now the Africa Corps), such collaborations have yielded little.

When JNIM imposes multiple blockades simultaneously in southern Mali, the army faces an impossible task. Its forces are too dispersed to mount a coordinated and sustained counteroffensive. Reinforcements face ambushes on poorly maintained roads or find themselves in unfamiliar terrain.

Geography, governance and strategic decentralisation

Geography helps explain Mali’s military paralysis. The blockade zones are vast and out of reach. The terrain is full of natural obstacles.

The Malian state has long struggled to extend state presence beyond urban centres like Bamako and Segou. In rural areas, the army’s arrival is often seen not as a return of governance but as an intrusion, with the risk of human rights abuses.

Decades of neglect, corruption and abusive counterinsurgency practices have alienated local populations and eroded intelligence networks.

The blockade operations aim to paralyse Bamako. Once confined to the country’s northern deserts and central plains, JNIM has, over the past few years, steadily advanced southward, carrying out sporadic attacks near the capital.

What explains this growing audacity of a group armed with little more than motorcycles and Kalashnikovs?

The answer lies in organisational logic. Unlike movements that depend on a single command structure, JNIM operates as a highly decentralised network of semi-autonomous cells. This allows it to adapt quickly to local conditions, exploit state weaknesses, and expand its influence without overstretching its resources. Each cell draws upon local grievances to recruit and sustain operations. Adaptability is JNIM’s greatest strength and the Malian state’s most enduring vulnerability.

The paradox of militarisation

Despite increased military spending, new alliances and aggressive rhetoric, JNIM’s territorial reach and tactical sophistication have only deepened.

The more the state militarises, the less secure its citizens appear to become.

This paradox reflects a broader trend in the Sahel. Counterinsurgency efforts are mostly military, without addressing the socioeconomic and governance conditions that sustain insurgencies.

Corruption, inequality and local marginalisation are some of these conditions. Thus, military campaigns become mere exercises in containment rather than resolution. In this context, JNIM’s blockades and incursions are not only military manoeuvres but political statements about who truly controls Mali’s hinterlands.

A war beyond firepower

The blockade in southern Mali reveals the limits of state-centered military power in an asymmetric war. To lift blockades for good requires more than tactical victories; it demands rethinking security.

The military government must cooperate with neighbours such as Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire.

More importantly, reclaiming territory must go hand-in-hand with rebuilding trust, restoring governance and addressing grievances. Until then, the motorcycles and AK-47s of JNIM will outpace the tanks and rhetoric of Mali’s military junta.

– Bamako under siege: why Mali’s army is struggling to break the jihadist blockade of the capital
– https://theconversation.com/bamako-under-siege-why-malis-army-is-struggling-to-break-the-jihadist-blockade-of-the-capital-268521