This is a great take on the political crisis in Sudan (the comparisons with Ethiopia are highly illuminating, too). Here’s a section on General Muhammad Hamdan Dagalo, the Eastern Darfuri military man (warlord, really) who has emerged as a major power player in Khartoum:

Sudan’s protest movement will be negotiating with a military that has set ways of dealing with civilian adversaries. Expectations it is willing to make a strategic and irreversible retreat from politics seems over-optimistic. The TMC’s 30^thApril pronouncements and the subsequent hardening of language certainly sow doubt about the prospect of that happening any time soon.

The unilateral and escalatory nature of the council’s statement goes against the letter and spirit of the negotiations. It may be a hint of an intense internal power struggle. It could also signal an attempt by hardline factions to assert greater control – a hypothesis lent some credence by the fact it was the TMC’s second in command Gen Muhammad Hamdan Dagalo aka Hemedti who was personally involved.

Hemedti, the commander of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF – Quwaat al-Da’m al-Sari’), has in recent weeks emerged as the real power within the TMC, playing court to visiting dignitaries and diplomats. His swift maneuvers to consolidate power within the military and security services is anything but coincidental. He was for example “elevated” to a “member” of the National Intelligence and Security Service (official SUNA news agency dispatch said he was now “uzw” – a “member” of NISS – a vague term that is both odd and inexplicable) at a low-key event in Khartoum in late April.

The RSF itself is affiliated to the NISS since it was established in 2013 from the rump of the Janjaweed militia and one would assume Hemedti as commander would be a “member” of the intelligence and security service.

The original force, roughly 7,000, was drawn mainly from Hemedti’s own Rizaygat tribe in Darfur (an important factor in itself that partly explains its strong internal cohesion and loyalty to Hemedti). It has a complicated dual command chain; answerable to both the NISS DG and the regular Army General Command. Bashir increasingly relied on the RSF and the Popular Police Forces in recent years to quell social unrest and low-level armed insurrections. The bulk of the RSF is now fighting in Yemen alongside Emirati troops, a decision based on RSF’s perceived counterinsurgency competence/adaptability to the Yemeni battlefield conditions.

Read the whole thing here. For background on Omar Al-Bashir’s ouster see here.