Overview
The capture of El Fasher by the paramilitary Rapid Support Force (RSF) will initiate a Libya-style partition of Sudan, potentially prolonging conflict, undermining Red Sea shipping, or prompting new sanctions. While US diplomacy has created momentum for a ceasefire among interventionist powers, these powers seek to keep their economic spheres of influence intact and may hesitate to exert political pressure. The outlook is grim for Sudan: the international coalition behind the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) is contradictory, making long-term SAF-led governance unstable, and the RSF’s long strike capability on Port Sudan puts Red Sea shipping in the conflict zone, creating additional trade pressure. Calls for new sanctions could increase the risks of businesses exposed to Sudan’s war economy.
The Fall of El Fasher Cements Partition
On October 26, after an 18-month siege, the RSF—the former praetorian-like force that served the protection and prerogatives of Omar al-Bashir, Sudan’s 30-year ruler removed from power in 2019—captured El Fasher, the last stronghold of the SAF in Darfur. In doing so, the RSF has consolidated control of nearly all of western Sudan, which is remote from Khartoum and the coastal Port Sudan, the seat of the SAF-led Sudanese government. While El Fasher represented the epicenter of the conflict’s fighting and humanitarian catastrophe, the war will continue for the unforeseeable future, shifting to the disputed Kordofan regions. Sudan is entering a Libya-style partition, which will change the strategies of both forces in the conflict. As it stands, both sides have reason to believe they are winning, likely reinforcing a narrow opportunity window for negotiations.
From the RSF’s perspective, the capture of El Fasher demonstrated its ability to control supply lines in the vast Darfur region and reverse SAF momentum. An invading SAF force will struggle to field expeditionary forces, and the RSF’s consolidation of power in Darfur also presents new opportunities. First, this will reinforce the ability of its political arm, led by Mohammed Hassan al-Taishi, to negotiate arms deals with foreign governments, buff up its diplomatic resources within Africa, and facilitate outreach to militias currently aligned with the SAF. Second, the RSF will deepen its long-range drone capabilities, which have broadened the scope of the war. In May 2025, the RSF struck oil depots in Port Sudan, seriously challenging the SAF’s logistical security for the first time.
Meanwhile, the SAF has the upper hand politically and logistically: most countries view the SAF as the legitimate government of Sudan, which has enabled military support, including from Iran, Turkey, and Egypt. The SAF’s integration of Iranian and Turkish drones has slowly turned the tide of the war, allowing for its recapture of Khartoum from RSF forces earlier in 2025. Moreover, the SAF has the advantage of distance, controlling power centers in Port Sudan and Khartoum: government elites are accustomed to far-off campaigns in the periphery, viewing a Darfur-based conflict less existentially than, say, Khartoum.
The SAF will seek to portray the RSF as illegitimate, especially given the ethnically motivated killings of Darfuri ethnic groups, particularly the Zaghawa, after the fall of El Fasher. Many RSF fighters, often made up of Arab militias, view the Zaghawa as collaborators with the SAF or have historical land-use grievances against African groups. The RSF has promised accountability for soldiers who commit crimes against civilians, but similar pledges have gone unfulfilled, including in the Darfuri city of El Geneina in 2023, in which 15,000 ethnic Masalits were killed. A bipartisan collection of lawmakers in the US, led by Sen. Jim Risch (R-ID), the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has called upon the US to designate the RSF as a terrorist group.
A Solution in Sudan Must Account for Many Middle Powers
Over time, middle powers carved out spheres of economic influence within Sudan, and their support for the SAF and RSF corresponds to who territorially holds control of those investments. Sudan’s dependence on these powers accelerated after 2011, when South Sudan seceded from Sudan and took about 75% of its oil reserves. Sudan, losing 50% of its government revenue and foreign exchanges, compounded by US sanctions for harboring al-Qaeda in the 1990s, faced a looming financial crisis. Omar al-Bashir, Sudan’s 30-year ruler, initiated a new foreign policy leveraging Sudan’s agricultural fertility to supply the Arab Gulf (which imports as much as 85% of its food) and expanded gold exports, which was secured by RSF forces. The deepening economic partnership—and balancing between Middle Eastern powers—continued after the SAF and RSF ousted al-Bashir from power in 2019.
Most notably, the gold sector, secured by the RSF, was largely acquired by the UAE, with $2 billion in official exports routed there annually (however, this is thought to be only 15% of all exports, as much more is smuggled into the UAE and Russia). The UAE initially bet on the RSF in the conflict and views its victory—or at least a power-sharing arrangement—as existential, as other investments will otherwise likely be canceled by an SAF-controlled government. For example, the UAE largely acquired Sudan’s banking sector after it was privatized, including the Bank of Khartoum; and it paid at least $300 million in a deposit to build the Abu Amama port on Sudan’s Red Sea coastline, which would operate as a free trade zone for agricultural exports, such as fodder and arabic gum, a vital component in many processed foods.
The UAE has allegedly trafficked weapons into the hands of the RSF through its gold imports, namely advanced Chinese-made drones, in addition to small arms, artillery, and ammunition, through its allies in Libya, Kenya, and Chad. At the same time, the UAE is playing a balancing act, allowing the Bank of Khartoum to continue facilitating logistics at Port Sudan, the seat of the SAF-led government.
On the side of the SAF, Turkey, in partnership with Qatar, plans to complete a Suakin-based port on the Red Sea for dual civil-military use. As such, Turkey has provided the SAF with Yiha suicide drones, which have been crucial for the recapture of Khartoum. Egypt has also given the SAF military support to prevent spillover in its Nile territory, but it remains cautious to the SAF’s alliances with Islamist militias. Saudi Arabia, officially neutral, is less overtly supportive of the SAF but views it as the legitimate government, which aligns with its economic interests; most of the $35 billion it invested in the Sudanese economy has been in agricultural projects along the SAF-controlled Nile River, and Saudi Arabia is the largest importer of Sudanese livestock, which grazes on primarily SAF-controlled grasslands. Moreover, in October 2025, the SAF-backed government announced that Saudi Arabia is planning an additional $50 billion in investment, capitalizing on Sudan’s reconstruction.
A Diplomatic Strategy Emerges, But Risks Remain
The challenge for a political settlement in the Sudan conflict is threefold: there is no foreseeable path to military victory, middle powers view access to Sudan’s coast and agricultural land as existential, and repairing a cohesive state between the interests of the SAF and RSF remains unlikely. The Trump administration’s Africa envoy, Massad Boulos, has decided to confront these challenges head-on. His strategy is to unite the middle powers on a political plan and, establishing momentum, prod the warring parties to the table. This is similar to Boulos’ approach in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), whereby he established a political arrangement between the DRC and Rwanda before engaging a dual ceasefire track with the DRC and Rwanda-backed M23 rebels.
On September 12, the US coalesced a Joint Statement with Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE—informally known as the Quad—agreeing to a plan for a three-month ceasefire to surge humanitarian aid before finalizing a permanent ceasefire and triggering a transition to civilian rule to be completed within nine months. The Quad agreed that Sudan should not be governed by either the SAF or RSF, nor the Muslim Brotherhood, which the Quad distrusts. In turn, the Quad agreed, in principle, that they should pressure the warring parties to the table and cease flows of external military support. However, both the SAF and RSF shrugged off the statement, and the RSF captured El Fasher just over a month later. Both the SAF and RSF are unlikely to cede authority to civilian rule without pressure (indeed, it was distrust over their scheduled integration under civilian rule that led to the conflict’s outbreak in April 2023).
One political risk is the SAF’s unstable international coalition, which threatens to complicate a “return” to normalcy. The military is leveraging Egypt and Saudi Arabia’s logistical support, but these backers want to mitigate Islamist politics within the country, key to the SAF’s domestic base. Meanwhile, Turkey and Iran—arguably more decisive military enablers through drone deliveries—have a contradictory influence, seeking to elevate aligned Islamist groups and cash in on port deals in return for their support. The SAF’s unlikely array of enablers creates geostrategic headaches among US and EU observers, who have opted to sit out pressure beyond targeted sanctions on SAF and RSF leaders for war crimes and undermining civilian rule.
Regionally, there is a downside risk of spillover as well. The RSF’s strike capability on Port Sudan puts the Red Sea in range, making Suez-routed shipping more dangerous. If a suspected SAF supplier is attacked, trade may be diverted from the Red Sea, adding global inflationary pressure. Sudan’s partition could heighten geopolitical risk in the Horn of Africa more broadly if it overlaps with other conflicts too. Tensions remain high between Ethiopia and Eritrea, which support opposite sides of the Sudan war and, if coming to blows, would create one integrated conflict theatre. For example, the RSF could utilize Ethiopian territory as a staging ground for a new offensive in Sudan or help Ethiopia take the Assab port on the condition of accessing the sea for its smuggling networks. If this scenario were to occur, conflict resolution will become unmanageable without decisive military outcomes.
Geoeconomic risks could escalate if the US attempts to cut off external support to warring parties unilaterally from the Quad. In June 2023, the US sanctioned gold mining entities owned by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, the Commander of RSF forces, in addition to some businesses associated with the SAF, but never applied secondary sanctions on banks that facilitate gold smuggling through the UAE and Russia, which helps fund Russia’s warmaking in Ukraine. If the US expanded sanctions, or designated the RSF a terrorist group, businesses face downside risks if exposed to Sudan’s war economy.
