CAIRO: Sudan ‘s military on Saturday consolidated its grip on the capital, retaking more key government buildings a day after it gained control of the Republican Palace from a notorious paramilitary group.
Brig. Gen. Nabil Abdullah, a spokesperson for the Sudanese military, said troops expelled the Rapid Support Forces from the headquarters of the National Intelligence Service and Corinthia Hotel in central Khartoum.
The army also retook the headquarters of the Central Bank of Sudan and other government and educational buildings in the area, Abdullah said. Hundreds of RSF fighters were killed while trying to flee the capital city, he said.
There was no immediate comment from the RSF.
The gain came a day after the military retook the Republican Palace, the prewar seat of the government, in a major symbolic victory for the Sudanese military in its nearly two years of war against the RSF.
A drone attack on the palace Friday believed to have been launched by the RSF killed two journalists and a driver with Sudanese state television, according to the ministry of information. Lt. Col. Hassan Ibrahim, from the military’s media office, was also killed in the attack, the military said.
Volker Perthes, former UN envoy for Sudan, the latest military advances will force the RSF to withdraw to its stronghold in the western region of Darfur.
“The army has gained an important and significant victory in Khartoum militarily and politically,” Perthes told The Associated Press, adding that the military will soon clear the capital and its surrounding areas from the RSF.
But the advances doesn’t mean the end of the war as the RSF holds territory in the western Darfur region and elsewhere. Perthes argued that the war will likely turn into an insurgency between the Darfur-based RSF and the military-led government in the capital.
“The RSF will be largely restricted to Darfur ... We will return to the early 2000s,” he said, in reference to the conflict between rebel groups and the Khartoum government, then led by former President Omar Al-Bashir.
At the start of the war in April 2023, the RSF took over multiple government and military buildings in the capital including the Republican Palace, the headquarters of the state television and the besieged military’s headquarters, known as the General Command. It also occupied people’s houses and turned it into bases for their attacks against troops.
In recent months, the military took the lead in the fighting. It reclaimed much of Khartoum and its sister cities of Omdurman and Khartoum North, along with other cities elsewhere in the country. In late January, troops lifted the RSF siege on the General Command, paving the way to retake the palace less than two months later.
The military is now likely to try to retake the Khartoum International Airport, only some 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles) southeast of the palace, which has been held by the RSF since the start of the war. Videos posted on social media Saturday purportedly showed soldiers on a road leading to the airport.
The war, which has wrecked the capital and other urban cities, has claimed the lives of more than 28,000 people, forced millions more to flee their homes and left some families eating grass in a desperate attempt to survive as famine sweeps parts of the country. Other estimates suggest a far higher death toll.
The fighting has been marked by atrocities including mass rape and ethnically motivated killings that amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, especially in the western region of Darfur, according to the United Nations and international rights groups.

AKRE. Iraq: Kurds in Iraq and Syria this week marked the Nowruz festival, a traditional celebration of spring and renewal, at a time when many are hoping that a new political beginning is on the horizon.

Nowruz, the Farsi-language word for “new year,” is an ancient Persian festival that is celebrated in countries including Iraq, Syria, Turkiye and Iran. It is characterized by colorful street festivals and torch-bearing processions winding their way into the mountains.

For many, Thursday and Friday’s Nowruz festivities symbolized not only the arrival of spring but also the spirit and aspirations of the Kurdish people, who are now facing a moment of transformation in the region.

The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, which holds sway in much of northeastern Syria, recently signed a landmark deal with the new government in Damascus that includes a ceasefire and eventual merging of the SDF into the Syrian army.

Meanwhile, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which has waged a decades-long insurgency in Turkiye that has spilled over into conflict in Syria and northern Iraq, recently announced a ceasefire after the group’s imprisoned leader, Abdullah Ocalan, called for its members to put down their weapons.

In Iraq, calls for unity

As the sun set behind the mountains of Akre in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq Thursday, more than 1,500 volunteers climbed the steep hills, carrying burning torches as their faces shimmered in the light of the flame.

From a distance, their movements looked like a river of fire flowing up and down the mountain. At the top, small bonfires burned, while the sky was filled with the flashing colors of fireworks.

Women wearing colorful dresses with gold and silver jewelry and men dressed in traditional outfits with wide belts and turbans danced in the streets of the town and in the hills, Kurdish flags waving above the crowds.

The sound of dahol drums and zurna flutes echoed everywhere, mixed with modern Kurdish folk songs played from loudspeakers.

According to Akre’s directorate of tourism, some 88,000 people attended the event, including Kurds who traveled from around the region and the world. The substantial turnout came despite the fact that this year the festival coincides with Ramadan, during which many Kurds — like other Muslims — fast from sunrise to sunset daily.

Among those dancing on the hill was Hozan Jalil, who traveled from Batman city in Turkiye. Jalil said he is happy about the peace process and hopeful that it will bear results, although he was also somewhat circumspect. “I hope it won’t finish with regrets and our Kurdish people will not be deceived or cheated,” he said.

Jalil said Nowruz to him represents unity between Kurdish people across national boundaries. “This year, Nowruz to me symbolizes the point of achieving freedom for all Kurdish people,” he said.

For the people of Akre, Nowruz has become a tradition that connects them to Kurds and others everywhere. A local from Akre, described her pride in hosting such a celebration in her town.

“It’s a great feeling that everyone from all over the world comes to Akre for this celebration because it makes Akre the capital of Nowruz for the whole world,” said Guevara Fawaz. She was walking through the town’s main square with her family dressed in traditional Kurdish clothes.

Like Jalil, she voiced hopes that the PKK-Turkiye talks would progress and “achieve peace in all four parts of Kurdistan.”

A changing reality in Syria

Across the border in Syria, where former President Bashar Assad was unseated in a lightning rebel offensive in December, Nowruz celebrations took place openly in the streets of the capital for the first time in more than a decade since anti-government protests spiraled into a civil war in 2011.

Hundreds of Kurds packed into Shamdeen Square in the Roken Al-Din neighborhood, the main Kurdish area in the Syrian capital, to light the Nowruz fire, waving Kurdish flags alongside the new, three-starred Syrian flag.

In the village of Hemo, just outside the city of Qamishli in northeastern Syria, the Kurdish flag, along with flags of Abdullah Ocalan and the SDF, waved high above the crowds as people danced in the streets.

The new rulers in Damascus, Islamist former insurgents, have promised to respect minorities. A temporary constitution announced earlier this month states that “citizens are equal before the law ... without discrimination based on race, religion, gender or lineage.”

But many Kurds were unhappy that the text does not explicitly recognize Kurdish rights.

Mizgeen Tahir, a well-known Kurdish singer who attended the festivities in Hemo, said, “This year, Nowruz is different because it’s the first Nowruz since the fall of the Baath regime and authority,” referring to the now-disbanded Baath party of the Assad dynasty.

But Syria’s Kurdish region “is at a turning point now,” he said.

“This Nowruz, we’re unsure about our situation. How will our rights be constitutionally recognized?” Media Ghanim, from Qamishli, who also joined the celebrations, said she is hopeful that after Assad’s fall, “we will keep moving forward toward freedom and have our rights guaranteed in the Syrian constitution.”

“We hope these negotiations will end with success, because we want our rights as Kurds,” she said.