The Army Says the Highway Is Its Own; Hemedti Hands the Next Offensive to His Field Commanders
Sudan’s army declared control of the 400km Omdurman–El Obeid export road on Tuesday. A day earlier, drones hit El Obeid at dawn, and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo told his commanders they no longer need to wait for orders.
The operation began Saturday 25 July from army positions at Raheed al-Nuba, west of Omdurman. By Sunday the Sudanese Armed Forces and the allied Joint Force — the army plus Darfur armed movements — said they held Bara, Um Sayala, Um Qurfa, Jabrat al-Sheikh and Al-Baraka, and on Tuesday 28 July the army announced it controlled the export road linking the capital region to North Kordofan. The territorial inventory is a belligerent’s, as is the claim carried by Qatar News Agency that 73 RSF combat vehicles were destroyed. The direction of travel, though, is corroborated: AFP journalists in El Obeid reported the outcome, and two army sources told the wire on condition of anonymity that the RSF had been pushed west off the 400km highway. Dabanga’s field sources say an RSF counter-attack to retake the ground was repelled.
At dawn on Monday 27 July, drone strikes hit two municipal buildings in El Obeid, destroying the local lawyers' association. An AFP reporter in the city confirmed the strikes; the wire attributes them only as blamed on the RSF. On the same day Dagalo said his field commanders would now have full autonomy to launch offensives without waiting for central orders — reported by Sudan Tribune from Nairobi, with The National running a companion AFP-sourced piece on 28 July framed as an attempt to rally fighters after losses. Burhan, meanwhile, appeared flanked by Minni Minawi and Sudan Shield Forces commander Abu Aqla Kaykal, and ordered forces to clear the country up to the Central African Republic border.
Assessment: Bara has been announced retaken before — a Sudans Post report dated 6 March 2026 describes the same town falling to the same coalition. That date needs checking, but if it holds, the “turning point” framing collapses into a five-month cycle. Geeska’s account, that the whole push was a counter-offensive triggered by an RSF attack south of El Obeid, cuts the same way. Read Dagalo’s devolution order as the day’s real disclosure: whether it reflects broken communications or a deliberate diffusion of responsibility, anyone negotiating a truce now faces a counterparty who has said on the record that he does not set the tempo of his own war.