Yesterday Ed had the breaking news that the U.S. was making plans to evacuate its embassy staff from Sudan’s capital city of Khartoum, but that American citizens in-country were being told they were out of luck.

The American mission in the capital warned Thursday that “due to the uncertain security situation in Khartoum and closure of the airport, it is not currently safe to undertake a U.S. government-coordinated evacuation of private U.S. citizens.”

If that wasn’t a horrific deja vu moment of international disgrace and national tragedy, I don’t know what one would be.

But it also caught many people off guard, as in “Who? WHERE?” And the very important “WHYs,” as in “why did this happen” and “why would it be so hard to get everyone out?”

I thought I’d take a post and try to set the players onstage for those of you who were interested and there are a lot of players in this unfolding event.

First, the origin of this war in Sudan (there’ve been several), Cliffs Notes edition. It’s a country of 45 million people, which had, for many years, been a strong U.S. and European ally in the fight against terrorism and unfettered immigration to Europe. That started to change in 2019 when, after a popular uprising, the country’s longtime hardline Islamist dictator Omar al-Bashir was overthrown in a military coup.

…Mr. Bashir has been arrested and the army is taking over power for two years, Ahmed Awad Ibn Auf, Sudan’s defense minister and a longtime ally of Mr. Bashir, said in a statement broadcast on state television. The military suspended the constitution and dissolved the government and parliament, Mr. Auf said.

Opposition forces immediately protested the appointment of most of Bashir’s inner circle to the transitional ruling council, massive protests roiled the country – the people who wanted a democracy were plum out of luck and truly unhappy. Eventually, the two top generals who orchestrated the coup split into opposing and competing factions – one Sudanese military and one with a “state militia” – whose forces are at the heart of the conflict that really intensified a week ago.

Heavy fighting broke out in Sudan’s capital and other cities between the national military and a powerful militia—a dangerous escalation of tensions between the country’s top two generals, who worked together to oust Sudan’s longtime dictator, Omar al-Bashir, in 2019.

In competing statements, the military, commanded by Lt. Gen. Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, and the Rapid Support Forces, a state-sponsored militia led by Lt. Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, blamed each other for starting the conflict. Gen. Burhan also heads Sudan’s ruling junta, with Gen. Dagalo as his deputy.

Residents reported gunfire and frequent explosions in the capital Khartoum and Omdurman, its twin city across the Nile River, and in other parts of Sudan. The vast country of around 45 million is perched between Egypt and Ethiopia along the Red Sea. The military said it had deployed aircraft against the RSF, and video footage circulating on social media showed jet fighters in the skies of Khartoum.

…In recent months, the two generals have been maneuvering for an upper hand over who will ultimately control Sudan’s powerful armed forces. While the Sudanese military has been demanding that the RSF be integrated into the army within two years, Gen. Dagalo insisted that this would take 10 years.

On Tuesday, the junta missed a deadline agreed on with the United Nations, the U.S. and other foreign governments for restoring civilian rule following the 2021 coup.

So, again, you have the SAF (Sudanese Armed Forces) led by Gen Burhan who also heads the junta running the country vs the RSF (Rapid Support Forces) which is a “state-sponsored” militia group led by Gen Degalo aka “Hemedti” (once an uneducated camel herder with no military training, but now interests in gold mines, etc) who is the deputy of the general who runs the country.

“You will not find a single person in all of Darfur who will tell you he was a camel trader,” says Neimat al Mahdi, who lived in North Darfur at the time Hemedti claims he was trading camels. “He was a highwayman."

My profile of General Hemedti https://t.co/5KdIScDvXf

— Nesrine Malik (@NesrineMalik) April 20, 2023

Confused yet?

It gets worse. It’s a snake pit.

Besides being the Sudanese military with impressive air assets to boot – Sudanese MIG-29s were filmed flying support over Khartoum in recent days – the SAF also gets significant support from the Egyptian government.

The RSF grew out of Hemedti’s Janjaweed militia that terrorized the Darfur region of Sudan with brutal crackdowns on pro-democracy demonstrators and targeting activists. They are bankrolled in large part by the United Arab Emirates and have the ability to pull troops for their ranks from neighboring Chad. What they don’t have in hard weapons materiel, they make up for in cunning.

…Sudan is facing a state collapse similar to Yemen’s. The SAF launched an intense bombing campaign in Khartoum and may soon take the upper hand in the capital thanks to their superior air power. The air force has been a decisive element in Sudan’s wars, especially beginning in 2003, when the SAF and the precursor to the RSF, the janjaweed, fought on the same side during the war in Darfur.

The power of Sudan’s air force is why RSF operations in the early hours of the conflict focused on taking control of airports across the country so SAF air operations would be grounded. It has only partially worked. However, it may take weeks to dislodge the RSF from residential buildings in Khartoum that they have converted into military installations. At the same time, it will be difficult to defeat the RSF in their tribal homeland of Darfur, especially with their ability to mobilize soldiers from neighboring Chad. Sudan’s descent into a full-scale civil war appears more likely by the hour.

…The UAE has been a key ally for Hemeti during the former’s war in Libya and Yemen. The UAE also benefits from financial ties to Hemeti’s businesses. Global Witness reports that the UAE has also been a key supplier of military equipment to the RSF. Russian Wagner Group mercenaries trained RSF troops and had officials stationed inside some of their bases. To halt the conflict, the leaders of South Sudan, Djibouti, and Kenya have offered to mediate.

The RSF also has friends in high places doing their best to help them out as far as assets are concerned. The Russian Wagner Group, for instance, just got busted running them arms shipments.

That plane flew from Haftar’s Khadim airbase in Libya to the Syrian coastal city of Latakia – where Russia has a major airbase – on Thursday, April 13. The next day, it flew from Latakia back to Khadim. The day after that, it flew again to another Haftar airbase in Libya’s Jufra

— Gianluca Mezzofiore (@GianlucaMezzo) April 20, 2023

CNN got the drop on that yesterday afternoon and what the Russians sent is hugely concerning for everyone in the theater…or for anyone who needs to go in.

The Russian mercenary group Wagner has been supplying Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces with missiles to aid their fight against the country’s army, Sudanese and regional diplomatic sources have told CNN.

The sources said the surface-to-air missiles have significantly buttressed RSF paramilitary fighters and their leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo as he battles for power with Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, Sudan’s military ruler and the head of its armed forces.

In bordering Libya, where a Wagner-backed rogue general, Khalifa Haftar, controls swathes of land, satellite imagery supports these claims, showing an unusual uptick in activity on Wagner bases.

The opposing forces were being watched warily for weeks by embassies in-country as the promised transition to a democratic/citizen-led government of some description that was supposed to have happened didn’t.

Around April 13th, that started going south and the assembled foreign envoys sent a joint message. This is when the United States and Europe begin to stir publicly.

Troika and European Union Envoys Statement on Heightened Tensions in Sudan pic.twitter.com/la9igNdKfU

— U.S. Embassy Khartoum (@USEmbassyKRT) April 13, 2023

It got personal as far as the US and EU went a few days ago – a line was crossed.

No doubt the attacks on ambassadors and embassy staff cemented the decision to begin bug-out procedures.

But how to do it with warring factions all around who also have anti-air capabilities and you have to get your people out by air?

Being military, in a family roundtable, we figured that all the parties with staff involved laid a marker down to the faction heads, to wit “Hold your dogs off. We get everyone out with no trouble, however long it takes us to do it.” The threat of massive destruction raining in from a strike group in the Red Sea was probably the stick holding the carrot.

Lo and behold, not 40 minutes after we were kicking that around, a self-preservational Eid miracle occurred.

Overnight, the U.S….

…Germany, Norway, and Italy et al, had transports in the air, moving them where they needed to be.

Even the Japanese are part of the forces getting ready for a multi-national evacuation effort.

Aircraft from the Japanese Self-Defense Force alongside Military Aircraft from the United States, France, Britain, Germany, and South Korea have arrived in Djibouti in order to prepare for a Joint-Military Operation to Evacuate Foreign Nationals and Diplomats still in Sudan. pic.twitter.com/KnHKrLSxen

— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) April 21, 2023

That might sound surprising, but they’ve actually worked with the United States on exercises out of Djibouti for just this very nightmare scenario. It’s called a NEO – Noncombatant Evacuation Operation.

Initiated by the Japanese military, the US Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA) supported the first joint-nation noncombatant evacuation operation (NEO) exercise and training in Djibouti on 29 September.

CJTF-HOA assists partner nations in building their militaries’ capability and capacity to execute peace operations and respond to emergencies, which not only enhances security and stability throughout Africa, but is also beneficial to U.S. security interests, CJTF-HOA said.
“A situation occurring in a country that prompts the Japanese to conduct a NEO will most likely also cause the U.S. and other nations to do the same,” said U.S. Navy Lt. Cmdr. Jason Lewis, CJTF-HOA exercise planner.

“This means it’s likely if a NEO is going to be conducted by one nation, other nations are going to want to evacuate their noncombatants for the same reasons. So, NEO operations are inherently multinational.”

So, what’s going to be the plan? Naturally, no one’s going to broadcast a word (at least I hope not). The entire situation is so fraught with danger in every aspect, from the hostile guns on the ground to the distances involved – Djibouti is almost 1000 miles as the crow flies from Khartoum – and coordination is always daunting.

The airport is supposedly unusable for transports between debris and artillery pockmarks on the runways and burnt-out airliners.

Badr Airlines 737-800 destroyed by fire during the latest fighting around Khartoum Airport in Sudan. Since Saturday, at least a dozen aircraft have been targeted as intense violence between the Sudanese military and the Rapid Support Forces continues. pic.twitter.com/69zQQ4mGgk

— Breaking Aviation News & Videos (@aviationbrk) April 21, 2023

So there is some speculation that folks would be moved to an airbase outside the city, but that brings its own problems with it.

…A potential option would be to move the personnel to Wadi Seidna Air Base for an air evacuation. Dozens of Egyptian soldiers captured by the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group were released this week and flew home from that base, which is 14 miles north of Khartoum.

The Egyptians were released before all this went to complete poop inside the city. No one in their right mind wants to convoy back and forth through those 3d world streets with civilians, never mind where do enough vehicles come from to do so. “Black Hawk Down” ring a bell? I mean, the locals are restless…

RSF between a rock and a hard place now. To avoid SAF tanks & AFVs the militia has taken their more manoeuvrable trucks into neighbourhoods the SAF has countered this by flooding neighbourhoods with squads of foot soldiers who are in turn more manoeuvrable than RSF trucks #Sudan https://t.co/EOie4geKSE

— Mohanad (@MohanadElbalal) April 21, 2023

…and there are already sporadic gunfights breaking out. The surface-to-air missiles the RSF has are freshly Russian-supplied, remember, which would be pretty awkward God forbid they hit something of ours. But any fired-up yahoo with a 50 cal can do some damage to a bird in close.

Egypt and the UAE are talking, trying to calm things down.

Official Egyptian statement says the two leaders "discussed the two countries’ relentless efforts to calm down the situation in Sudan, halt the escalation, return to dialogue and restore the political trajectory." No other details provided.

— Geoffrey York (@geoffreyyork) April 20, 2023

They realize the potential for this to explode well beyond the borders of Sudan. God willing they can bring pressure to bear to get a lid on hostilities, as it is definitely in both their interests.

The next days – maybe even the coming hours – will be excruciating waiting for word.

For my part, I’d ask you to pray for the safety of our magnificent folks in uniform and for the safe homecoming of ALL our fellow Americans now in harm’s way.

So much can go so wrong.