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Hope Fades for Meeting between Sudan’s Burhan, Hemedti

Sudan’s army commander Abdul Fattah al-Burhan and Rapid Support Forces (RSF) leader Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Daglo.
Sudan’s army commander Abdul Fattah al-Burhan and Rapid Support Forces (RSF) leader Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Daglo.
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Hope Fades for Meeting between Sudan’s Burhan, Hemedti

Sudan’s army commander Abdul Fattah al-Burhan and Rapid Support Forces (RSF) leader Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Daglo.
Sudan’s army commander Abdul Fattah al-Burhan and Rapid Support Forces (RSF) leader Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Daglo.

A meeting between Sudan’s army commander Abdul Fattah al-Burhan and Rapid Support Forces (RSF) leader Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Daglo appears less and less likely in wake of the latest developments in the country.

The Sudanese people have pinned hopes that a direct meeting between them would help end the conflict between the military and RSF that erupted in mid-April.

The Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) was expected to organize a meeting between the two leaders in December, but plans collapsed over “technical reasons”. Another meeting was set for early January, but the plans also fell through. Hopes faded after IGAD didn’t set a date for a new meeting.

Moreover, Burhan’s latest statements in which he set conditions for meeting his rival have only complicated efforts.

Speaking from the Gebeit military zone, Burhan declared that he would not sign any agreement or reconciliation with the RSF before “reclaiming Sudan” from the paramilitary force.

Burhan appears to be forging ahead with the war, especially after severely criticizing the meeting that was held last week between Hemedti and head of the leadership body of the Coordination of Civilian Democratic Forces (Taqadum), former Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok in Addis Ababa.

Hemedti and Hamdok signed the “Addis Ababa Declaration” aimed at ending the war. The declaration agreed to a “unconditional” meeting between Hemedti and Burhan, but the RSF leader demanded that IGAD leaders be present at the talks.

The Sudanese foreign ministry also complicated efforts to hold a meeting when it demanded that the RSF fulfill the commitments it agreed to in the Jeddah Humanitarian Declaration, including withdrawing its forces from civilian regions.

A Sudanese military expert told Asharq Al-Awsat that the meeting between Hamdok and Hemedti raised tensions over a meeting between Bruhan and Hemedti.

Perhaps Burhan, as leader of the army, felt slighted that Hemedti met Hamdok first, he added on condition of anonymity.

Moreover, he said the army is coming under great pressure from its Islamist allies and supporters of the regime of ousted President Omar al-Bashir who oppose a meeting between Hemedti and Burhan. They would rather see the army continue the fight on the ground and achieve victory in the war.

Burhan may be waiting to achieve a military victory that would strengthen his negotiations position after it became compromised when the RSF swept through Wad Madani city, remarked the expert.

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US Pulls Out of Two More Bases in Syria, Worrying Kurdish Forces

SDF forces in Syria. (AFP file)
SDF forces in Syria. (AFP file)
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US Pulls Out of Two More Bases in Syria, Worrying Kurdish Forces

SDF forces in Syria. (AFP file)
SDF forces in Syria. (AFP file)

US forces have pulled out of two more bases in northeastern Syria, visiting Reuters reporters found, accelerating a troop drawdown that the commander of US-backed Syrian Kurdish forces said was allowing a resurgence of ISIS.

Reuters reporters who visited the two bases in the past week found them mostly deserted, both guarded by small contingents of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) - the Kurdish-led military group that Washington has backed in the fight against ISIS for a decade.

Cameras used on bases occupied by the US-led military coalition had been taken down, and razor wire on the outer perimeters had begun to sag.

A Kurdish politician who lives on one base said there were no longer US troops there. SDF guards at the second base said troops had left recently but declined to say when. The Pentagon declined to comment.

It is the first confirmation on the ground by reporters that the US has withdrawn from Al-Wazir and Tel Baydar bases in Hasaka province. It brings to at least four the number of bases in Syria US troops have left since President Donald Trump took office.

Trump’s administration said this month it will scale down its military presence in Syria to one base from eight in parts of northeastern Syria that the SDF controls. The New York Times reported in April that troops might be reduced from 2,000 to 500 in the drawdown.

The SDF did not respond to questions about the current number of troops and open US bases in northeastern Syria.

But SDF commander Mazloum Abdi, who spoke to Reuters at another US base, Al Shadadi, said the presence of a few hundred troops on one base would be "not enough" to contain the threat of ISIS.

"The threat of ISIS has significantly increased recently. But this is the US military’s plan. We’ve known about it for a long time ... and we’re working with them to make sure there are no gaps and we can maintain pressure on ISIS," he said.

Abdi spoke to Reuters on Friday, hours after Israel launched its air war on Iran. He declined to comment on how the new Israel-Iran war would affect Syria, saying simply that he hoped it would not spill over there and that he felt safe on a US base.

Hours after the interview, three Iranian-made missiles targeted the Al Shadadi base and were shot down by US defense systems, two SDF security sources said.

ISIS ACTIVE IN SYRIAN CITIES

ISIS ruled vast swathes of Iraq and Syria from 2014 to 2017 during Syria’s civil war, imposing a vision of religious rule under which it beheaded locals in city squares, sex-trafficked members of the Yazidi minority and executed foreign journalists and aid workers.

The group, from its strongholds in Raqqa in Syria and Mosul in Iraq, also launched deadly attacks in European and Middle Eastern countries.

A US-led military Coalition of more than 80 countries waged a yearslong campaign to defeat the group and end its territorial control, supporting Iraqi forces and the SDF.

But ISIS has been reinvigorated since the ouster of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in December at the hands of separate opposition factions.

Abdi said ISIS cells had become active in several Syrian cities, including Damascus, and that a group of foreign extremists who once battled the Syrian regime had joined its ranks. He did not elaborate.

He said ISIS had seized weapons and ammunition from Syrian regime depots in the chaos after Assad's fall.

Several Kurdish officials told Reuters that ISIS had already begun moving more openly around US bases which had recently been shuttered, including near the cities of Deir Ezzor and Raqqa, once strongholds for the extremist group.

In areas the SDF controls east of the Euphrates River, ISIS has waged a series of attacks and killed at least 10 SDF fighters and security forces, Abdi said. Attacks included a roadside bomb targeting a convoy of oil tankers on a road near the US base where he gave the interview.