seized

The fall of the city, a gateway to western Sudan’s Darfur region, over which the RSF recently seized control, could have huge effect on the war.

The Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) has refuted a claim by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) that it has seized control of the West Kordofan town of Babnusa.

Sudan’s military government said in a statement issued on Tuesday that it had repelled an attack by the RSF. The paramilitary outfit had claimed the previous day to have taken full control of Babnusa, a key city in the vast central Sudanese region of West Kordofan.

Babnusa serves as a gateway to the Darfur region, over which the paramilitary force took full control last month, and the whole of western Sudan.

Videos released by the RSF on Monday showed its fighters taking an army base in Babnusa after a weeks-long siege. However, the SAF maintained it was still fighting in the city.

The RSF “launched a new attack on the city, which our forces decisively repelled”, the official spokesperson for the Armed Forces said in a statement.

“The army says that the battles are ongoing, that they have their fighters still inside the city,” Al Jazeera’s Hiba Morgan reported from Khartoum. “But what we can definitely confirm is that when it comes to the army headquarters itself, the RSF has taken control of that.”

If the RSF consolidates control of Babnusa, it will have “solidified its control over the West Kordofan region” and along with it “any major access ways to the western part of the country”, she said.

“For the Sudanese army to get to parts of Darfur or to other parts of Kordofan, it has to go through Babnusa,” said Morgan, so losing the city would make regaining territory in Darfur even more challenging.

Al Jazeera Arabic reported fierce clashes were also taking place throughout other parts of Kordofan, including in the southern area of Abbasiya Tagali.

Broken ‘ceasefire’

The RSF’s assault on Babnusa builds on the group’s momentum after it captured the city of el-Fasher, the army’s final holdout in Darfur.

Witnesses and international aid agencies working on the ground have recounted widespread atrocities committed by the RSF. Evidence shows RSF militias engaged in mass killings, rape, and kidnapping.

The latest clashes also appear to break the unilateral ceasefire that was announced by the RSF following mediation efforts from the “Quad” – Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and the United States.

The SAF, which rejected the ceasefire terms presented by the Quad as too favourable to its adversary, has accused the RSF of continuing attacks despite its declared truce.

The government statement called the announced ceasefire “nothing but a political and media ploy intended to cover up [the RSF’s] field movements and the continuous flow of Emirati support that fuels the war and kills Sudanese people”.

The UAE has been widely accused of supporting the RSF with money and weapons, but it has staunchly rejected any involvement.

Analysts say that if Babnusa falls completely, the RSF is likely to move towards North Kordofan’s el-Obeid.

Should the city fall, the political shockwave will be enormous, Kholood Khair, the founding director of UK-based risk management provider Confluence Advisory, said.

“It’s a huge mercantile centre, a regional capital, and a major economic win. It also brings the RSF several steps closer to Khartoum.”

The RSF were forced out of the Sudanese capital in March, with the SAF appearing to be in the ascendancy in the more-than-two-year war.

But now the tables appear to be turning once more. Having lost Darfur completely with the fall of el-Fasher, the SAF now risks losing Kordofan also.

“The RSF has momentum, which they will carry on through with,” said Dallia Abdelmoniem, a Sudanese political analyst, who pointed out that an RSF ally, the SPLM-N, already controls the Nuba Mountains region of South Kordofan.

Israel has kept troops in a UN-patrolled buffer zone in the Golan Heights since December’s ouster of Bashar al-Assad.

Syria has denounced a trip by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other senior officials to the country’s south, where they visited troops deployed to Syrian territory they’ve occupied for months.

Israel expanded its occupation of southern Syrian territory as the regime of former President Bashar al-Assad was overrun by rebel forces in December.

“My government strongly condemns this provocative tour, which epitomises Israel’s ongoing aggression against Syria and its people,” Ibrahim Olabi, Syria’s ambassador to the United Nations, told the UN Security Council on Wednesday.

“We renew our call on the UN and this council to take firm and immediate action to halt these violations, ensure their non-reoccurrence, end the occupation and enforce relevant resolutions, particularly the 1974 disengagement agreement” that followed the 1973 Arab-Israeli War.

Since the overthrow of al-Assad, Israel has kept troops in a UN-patrolled buffer zone in the Golan Heights separating Israeli and Syrian forces.

UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric described Netanyahu and other senior Israeli officials’ “very public visit” as “concerning, to say the least”.

Dujarric noted that UN Resolution 2799, recently passed by the Security Council, “called for the full sovereignty, unity, independence, and territorial integrity of Syria”.

Israel has previously said the 1974 agreement has been void since al-Assad fled, and it has breached Syrian sovereignty with air strikes, ground infiltration operations, reconnaissance overflights, the establishment of checkpoints, and the arrest and disappearance of Syrian citizens.

Syria has not reciprocated the attacks.

‘Zero signs of aggression’

During the Security Council meeting, Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the UN, did not directly address Netanyahu’s visit but instead lectured Syria’s ambassador.

“Show us that Syria is moving away from extremism and radicalism, that the protection of Christians and Jews is not an afterthought but a priority. Show us that the militias are restrained and justice is real and the cycle of indiscriminate killings has ended,” Danon said.

Olabi responded: “The proving, Mr Ambassador, tends to be on your shoulders. You have struck Syria more than 1,000 times, and we have responded with requests for diplomacy … and responded with zero signs of aggression towards Israel. … We have engaged constructively. and we still await for you to do the same.”

Netanyahu was accompanied to Syrian territory by Foreign Minister Gideon Saar, Defence Minister Israel Katz, army Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir and the head of the Shin Bet security service, David Zini

Syria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates condemned “in the strongest terms the illegal visit, … considering it a serious violation of Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity”.

This month, Israel’s army renewed its incursions into Syria, setting up a military checkpoint in the southern province of Quneitra.

In September, Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa said Israel had conducted more than 1,000 air strikes and more than 400 ground incursions in Syria since al-Assad was overthrown, describing the actions as “very dangerous”.

Reporting from the UN in New York, Al Jazeera’s Gabriel Elizondo noted Syria and Israel continue to negotiate a security pact that analysts said could be finalised before the end of the year.

“The testy exchange between the two ambassadors likely won’t derail that. But it does show how little trust there is between both countries – and how Netanyahu and his government continue to try to provoke Damascus,” Elizondo said.