The transformations unfolding across Darfur under the expanding influence of the UAE-backed RSF are no longer confined to shifting front lines in the militia’s war against the Sudanese army; they are reaching into the region's political and social fabric.

Hemedti is forming a parallel government and a “new army” in Sudan amid defections and allegations of foreign support, but it remains unrecognized and unlikely to shift the war’s balance.

The growing wave of defections within the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia reflects a deepening military, tribal, and organizational crisis driven by battlefield losses, internal rivalries, and declining central control, raising the possibility of the group fragmenting into competing armed factions.

Sudan has raised tensions with Ethiopia and the UAE following drone strikes on Khartoum Airport and other regions, amid broader conflict dynamics, regional rivalries in the Horn of Africa, and ongoing disputes over borders, the GERD, and the Sudanese civil war.

The defection of Major General al-Nour Ahmed Adam al-Qubba, one of the most prominent field commanders in the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (Hemedti), marks one of the most significant breaks yet inside the UAE-backed militia.