“The fact that these forces were poised and at the ready to descend into this level of violence so swiftly should come as no surprise to anyone,” said Cameron Hudson, a former CIA analyst, now an Africa specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, adding that the foreign powers involved in the negotiations - the United States and Britain, as well as the United Nations, and African and Arab governments - had made a serious miscalculation to believe that both generals were willing parties on the verge of an agreement. Meanwhile, in the capital Khartoum, personnel carriers and tanks were seen rolling down the streets, fortifying and reinforcing both sides. They met with foreign mediators and made pledges to hand over power. In the weeks before the conflict broke out, the two generals flirted with a deal that was aimed at mollifying their remaining disputes - largely security sector reform and the integration of the RSF into the army - and moving the country toward a long-awaited, civilian-led democracy. That alliance, forged on a mutual disdain for the Sudanese people’s democratic ambitions, has crumbled into what now resembles a fight to the death. General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, Sudan’s military ruler and head of the army, and General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (widely known as Hemedti), the country’s deputy and head of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group, had shared power since carrying out a coup in 2021, when together they pushed civilians from a transitional government.
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