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Massive Explosions Rock Khartoum, Vicinity of the Presidential Palace

Smoke rises over Khartoum as clashes continue between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces (AP)
Smoke rises over Khartoum as clashes continue between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces (AP)
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Massive Explosions Rock Khartoum, Vicinity of the Presidential Palace

Smoke rises over Khartoum as clashes continue between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces (AP)
Smoke rises over Khartoum as clashes continue between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces (AP)

Massive explosions rocked the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, and several air raids focused on areas controlled by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in the city's southern neighborhoods.

According to eyewitnesses, huge flames were seen in the center of Khartoum and around the vicinity of the presidential palace, large parts of which had been previously destroyed by intensive air strikes.

Explosions were heard in the sports city and the central market, targeting the RSF.

The Rapid Support responded by launching an artillery attack on army positions at the headquarters of the General Command and the Armored Corps, according to sources.

Before that, the head of the Sovereign Council, Army Commander Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, left Thursday his main headquarters in central Khartoum, which the Rapid Support Forces surround from several sides.

Residents said the army's drones bombed RSF sites in several neighborhoods north of Bahri.

On Friday, the Sudanese army announced that it had responded to a new attack by the Rapid Support Forces on the headquarters of the Armored Corp, during which they suffered heavy losses.

-Freedom and Change warns

Meanwhile, leaders in the Forces of Freedom and Change warned against Burhan's decision to form a caretaker government, according to what his close circles reported.

A member of the Executive Office of the Forces, Yasir Arman, said on the X platform that the "remnants" are waiting for Burhan in Port Sudan to form a caretaker government to prolong the war and plunder public money.

Arman wondered if Burhan would fulfill their desires at the expense of the people.

Furthermore, the People's Liberation Movement - Revolutionary faction, led by Arman, confirmed in a statement signed by his deputy, Buthaina Dinar, that the armed forces helped extract Burhan from the military headquarters.

The statement warned that reports about Burhan's intention to form a government in Port Sudan under the leadership of the remnants will deepen national divisions.

The movement suggested holding extensive consultations with all national and democratic forces and unifying a negotiation platform with regional and international partners to end the war

-Fear of division

The statement cautioned that expanding the war will not resolve the issue, and there is an opportunity for the army commander to present a new agenda that meets the people's agenda.

It warned that forming a government in Port Sudan might lead to establishing a parallel authority. It noted that it was better to harness all national energies towards a peaceful solution leading to a civil and democratic transition.

Burhan, who is currently in the Nile River state, is expected to arrive in Port Sudan city soon before heading on a foreign tour to neighboring countries.

-US condemnation

Furthermore, the United States strongly condemned pervasive conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) in Sudan, which credible sources, including victims, have attributed to the RSF and their allied militias.

The US embassy in Khartoum said that “the numerous reports of rape, gang rape, and other forms of gender-based violence against women and girls in West Darfur and other areas are alarming.”

It warned that these “acts of brutality contribute to an emerging pattern of targeted ethnic violence.”

The US embassy echoed the UN Special Representative of Secretary-General Patten in calling on the RSF to condemn CRSV, commit to effective measures to prevent and address any acts of CRSV and declare zero-tolerance for sexual violence.

The statement called on the RSF and Armed Forces to immediately halt the fighting and allow safe passage for all civilians out of Nyala and South Darfur, asserting that “perpetrators of atrocities must be held accountable.”

“Accountability for sexual violence in conflict is a core priority for the US government, as reflected in the Presidential Memorandum signed by President Biden in November 2022, which directs the use of all available tools including legal, policy, diplomatic, and financial tools to deter such violence.”

On Friday, the US ambassador to Sudan, John Godfrey, stressed that the “belligerents, who have demonstrated they are not fit to govern, must end the conflict and transfer power to a civilian transitional government.”

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Arab World

Lebanese Judiciary Summons Hezbollah Supporters Following Insults to Aoun

Hezbollah supporters carry a Hezbollah flag as they flash the victory sign during a rally in a southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, 21 January 2026. (EPA)
Hezbollah supporters carry a Hezbollah flag as they flash the victory sign during a rally in a southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, 21 January 2026. (EPA)
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Lebanese Judiciary Summons Hezbollah Supporters Following Insults to Aoun

Hezbollah supporters carry a Hezbollah flag as they flash the victory sign during a rally in a southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, 21 January 2026. (EPA)
Hezbollah supporters carry a Hezbollah flag as they flash the victory sign during a rally in a southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, 21 January 2026. (EPA)

The Lebanese judiciary issued on Thursday summons of Hezbollah supporters who had slandered President Joseph Aoun in wake of his criticism of the Iran-backed party.

Aoun has made repeated statements in recent weeks over the need to impose state monopoly over weapons, effectively disarming Hezbollah.

The government had last year taken a landmark decision to impose state monopoly over arms. Hezbollah has refused to lay down its weapons, putting it at odds with the state, and most recently Aoun.

Lebanon is keen on preventing itself from being dragged into "suicidal adventures, whose price we paid dearly for in the past," he said on Tuesday, which was seen as an indirect reference to Hezbollah.

A judicial source told Asharq Al-Awsat that the judiciary summoned on Thursday a Lebanese journalist who is close to Hezbollah over a video he posted online. The journalist ignored the summons, saying that as a journalist he does not have to appear before the judicial police, but rather the "Press Court".

The source added that another summons will be made over insults levelled against the president.

Lebanon's Public Prosecution allows the judiciary to act without prompting in three cases: the first over attacks against the character of the president, the second, attacks against the army and third, attacks against the judiciary.

Attacks and slander against any other parties are addressed when a complaint is filed. The source said the presidency did not file a complaint to the judiciary over the campaign against Aoun.

Hezbollah supporters had been vocally criticizing Aoun on social media over his recent stances. The posts did not shy away from using offensive language against the president.

Lebanese law allows summons when insults are made against the president in order to protect constitutional institutions. Any country, during strained political times, is concerned with protecting its constitutional figures and entities while still respecting freedom of expression and the press.

The recent summons are not aimed at undermining freedom of expression, but drawing a line between how much criticism can be levelled and between insulting the president's character and infringing on a constitutional figure, explained the source. Political criticism is acceptable, but a line is drawn when personal insults are made.

Lawyer Farouk al-Moghrabi told Asharq Al-Awsat that the Lebanese judiciary clearly details the measures that should be taken when it comes to the president.

The president has the right to file a complaint or the Public Prosecution can act without being prompted when he comes under attack, he added.

Arab World

Sudan Hospital Welcomes First Patients after War Forced It Shut

Women walk outside Bahri Teaching Hospital after it resumed services in the Sudanese capital Khartoum on January 18, 2026. (Photo by Ebrahim Hamid / AFP)
Women walk outside Bahri Teaching Hospital after it resumed services in the Sudanese capital Khartoum on January 18, 2026. (Photo by Ebrahim Hamid / AFP)
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Sudan Hospital Welcomes First Patients after War Forced It Shut

Women walk outside Bahri Teaching Hospital after it resumed services in the Sudanese capital Khartoum on January 18, 2026. (Photo by Ebrahim Hamid / AFP)
Women walk outside Bahri Teaching Hospital after it resumed services in the Sudanese capital Khartoum on January 18, 2026. (Photo by Ebrahim Hamid / AFP)

At a freshly renovated hospital in Khartoum the medical team are beaming: nearly three years after it was wrecked and looted in the early days of Sudan's war, the facility has welcomed its first patients.

The Bahri Teaching Hospital in the capital's north was stormed by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in April 2023, soon after fighting broke out between the RSF and Sudan's army.

Bahri remained a war zone until an army counteroffensive pushed through Khartoum last year, recapturing the area from the RSF in March.

A man waits outside the entrance to the emergency room while others walk through Bahri Teaching Hospital after resuming services in Khartoum, January 18, 2026 (AFP)

"We never thought the hospital would reopen," said Dr Ali Mohamed Ali, delighted to be back in his old surgical ward.

"It was completely destroyed, there was nothing left," he told AFP. "We had to start from scratch."

Ali fled north from Khartoum in the early days of the war, working in a makeshift medical camp with "no gloves, no instruments and no disinfectant".

According to the World Health Organization, the conflict has forced the shutdown of more than two-thirds of Sudan's health facilities and caused a world record number of deaths from attacks on healthcare infrastructure.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed across Sudan since the war began, while 11 million have been left displaced, triggering the world's largest hunger crisis.

But with the RSF now driven out of Khartoum, Sudan's army-backed government is gradually returning and the devastated city is starting to rebuild.

Around 40 of Khartoum's 120 hospitals, shut during the war, have resumed operations, according to the Sudan Doctors' Network, a local medical group.

People enter Bahri Teaching Hospital after resuming services in the Sudanese capital, January 18, 2026 (AFP)

- 'In ruins' -

The Bahri Teaching Hospital, which before the conflict treated around 800 patients a day in its emergency department, was repeatedly attacked and looted.

"All the equipment was stolen," said director Galal Mostafa, adding that about 70 percent of its buildings were damaged and the power system was destroyed.

"We were fortunate to receive two transformers just days ago," said Salah al-Haj, the hospital's chief executive.

During the first five days of fighting, Al-Haj -- an affable man with a sharp grey moustache -- was trapped inside one wing of the hospital.

"We couldn't leave because of the heavy gunfire," he told AFP, saying that anyone "who stepped outside risked being detained and beaten" by the RSF.

Patients were rushed to safety in dangerous transfers to hospitals away from the fighting across the Nile.

"Vehicles had to take very complicated routes to evacuate patients safely, avoiding shells and bullets," Al-Haj said.

On April 15, 2023, as the first shots rang out in the capital, RSF fighters seized Ali on his way into surgery.

They held him for two weeks at Soba, an RSF-run detention center in southern Khartoum whose former inmates have shared testimony of torture and inhumane conditions.

"When I was released, the country was in ruins," he said.

Hospitals were "destroyed, streets devastated and homes looted. There was nothing left."

Almost three years on, taxis now drop patients at the hospital's entrance, while new ambulances sit parked in a courtyard that until recently was strewn with rubble and overgrown weeds.

Inside, refurbished corridors smell of fresh paint.

The renovations and new equipment were funded by the Sudanese American Physicians Association and Islamic Relief USA at a cost of more than $2 million, according to the association.

Services have resumed in newly fitted emergency, surgical, obstetrics and gynecology rooms.

Doctors, nurses and administrators hustle through the halls, the administrators fretting over covering salaries and running costs.

"Now it's much better than before the war," said Hassan Alsahir, a 25-year-old intern in the emergency department.

"It wasn't this clean before, and we were short on beds -- sometimes patients had to sleep on the floor."

On its first day reopened, the hospital received a patient from the Kordofan region -- the war's current major battleground -- for urgent surgery.

"The operation went well," said Ali.

Arab World

Kurdish SDF Fighters Leave North Syria Prison under Govt Deal

Families of detainees waiting in Al-Aqtan prison on the outskirts of the city of Raqqa in northeastern Syria outside the prison in an attempt to get news about their relatives on Wednesday (AFP)
Families of detainees waiting in Al-Aqtan prison on the outskirts of the city of Raqqa in northeastern Syria outside the prison in an attempt to get news about their relatives on Wednesday (AFP)
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Kurdish SDF Fighters Leave North Syria Prison under Govt Deal

Families of detainees waiting in Al-Aqtan prison on the outskirts of the city of Raqqa in northeastern Syria outside the prison in an attempt to get news about their relatives on Wednesday (AFP)
Families of detainees waiting in Al-Aqtan prison on the outskirts of the city of Raqqa in northeastern Syria outside the prison in an attempt to get news about their relatives on Wednesday (AFP)

Syria said early Friday that government forces had begun transferring Kurdish fighters from a prison in the north where they had been holding ISIS detainees, as part of a weekend agreement.

An AFP correspondent in Raqa saw buses and cars heading away from the Al-Aqtan prison on the city's outskirts overnight, escorted by government vehicles, after roads to the facility were cut on Thursday.

Syrian state television reported that the transfer of SDF members has begun "after five days of negotiations with the Syrian state".

They will go to the Kurdish-held city of Ain al-Arab, also known as Kobane, in Aleppo province on the northern border with Türkiye "according to the security arrangements agreed upon by both parties", it reported.

Under military pressure from Damascus, which is seeking to extend its control across the country, the SDF has relinquished swathes of territory in recent days and withdrawn to parts of Syria's Hasakeh province in the far northeast.

On Sunday, Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa announced a deal with SDF chief Mazloum Abdi that had included a ceasefire and the integration of the Kurds' administration into the state, which will take responsibility for ISIS prisoners.

State news agency SANA quoted the army as saying the Al-Aqtan transfer was "the first step in implementing the January 18 agreement under which the interior ministry will take over administration of the prison".

A government source told the broadcaster that around 800 fighters would exit the facility under "an internationally sponsored agreement aimed at de-escalation".

ISIS detainees will be managed "according to Syrian law", the source added.

Thousands of suspected extremists and their families, including foreigners, have been held in Kurdish-run prisons and camps in Syria since ISIS’s defeat in 2019 at the hands of the SDF, backed by a US-led coalition.

The source said the step came "in response to international mediation aimed at preventing a military escalation... and ensuring a peaceful transfer" of authority at key sites.

On Monday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported clashes between government forces and SDF fighters at Al-Aqtan.

On Wednesday, the United States said it had launched an operation that could see 7,000 ISIS extremist detainees moved from Syria to Iraq, with 150 transferred so far.