Brigadier General Haroun Mersal, who commanded the army-allied joint force on the Kordofan axis, was killed on Tuesday as army-led forces pushed west, while a drone hit civilians queuing for fuel in South Kordofan.
Brigadier General Haroun Mersal, known as "Abu Taka", a senior commander of a joint force fighting alongside the Sudanese army, was killed on Tuesday 3 November in fighting in the Um Shaeira area of Kordofan, the force said in a statement reported by Sudan Tribune. Mersal had taken over the Kordofan operations axis after his predecessor, General Abdelaziz Ismail Niri, was killed in an airstrike in North Kordofan in late June.
According to Sudan Tribune, clashes between the army and allied armed groups and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) resumed on Monday on several fronts in North and West Kordofan, after army and joint force reinforcements arrived in the Sodiri and Al Mazroub areas. The paper said the army-led alliance was preparing to advance on Um Badr and Abu Zaeima in North Kordofan and on El Khowei and Al Nahud in West Kordofan, and that the RSF had brought in reinforcements from Darfur. The army's chief of staff, Lieutenant General Yasir al-Atta, vowed on 1 November to advance into Darfur and Kordofan.
Fuel queue hit
Also on Tuesday, a drone struck a fuel station in El Abbasiya, South Kordofan, while civilian vehicles queued during a severe local fuel shortage. Local sources told Sudan Tribune that at least seven people were killed and 36 injured, several critically, and attributed the strike to a suspected RSF drone. Darfur24, also citing local sources, put the toll at more than ten dead at the Nawafil station in Naqli al-Abbasiya. It said neither the casualty figures nor responsibility could be independently verified. In the reports reviewed by CERHA, the RSF had not commented.
Sudan Tribune said the strike came amid increased drone use by the RSF and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North in eastern South Kordofan, where drones have also hit three artisanal gold-mining sites in El Liri locality in recent weeks.
Civilians are being hit on both sides of the front line. Eyewitnesses told Darfur24 that on Sunday evening a drone they believed belonged to the army struck a Land Cruiser travelling from Al-Naim market to Um Badr in North Kordofan. They said the strike killed the driver, Mohammed Salem Rabah, and a passenger and injured others. The army has not commented on that strike.
The Kordofan fighting comes as drone strikes on power stations in army-held areas continue, and as the UN warns that attacks on fuel and energy sites are crippling aid deliveries.
Image: Traffic on a main road in El Obeid (Al-Ubayyid), capital of North Kordofan, 2020. Matab Hamed, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.