The attack on Wad Madani…a Retroactive Reading

By: Al-Obaid Ahmed Marwah

– The fact that the “Rapid Support Forces (RSF)” lost its political battle early on, and turned into criminal gangs that practiced robbery, plundering, intimidation, and spreading chaos, has become a statement that does not require additional evidence, and the attempt to attack the capital of Gezira State, the city of Wad Madani, at dawn on Friday is clearer proof of that.

It is clear that Khartoum State has already become difficult for the rebels, as a result of the coordinated strikes launched against them by the Armed Forces and the those backing them, by means of the Airforce and special operations groups, and that a large segment of the rebels chose the route of escape towards the east this time, but they wanted it as a way to spread chaos and practice their favorite methods of plundering and looting, as we mentioned.
Fleeing towards the East carries more than one meaning, the first and most important of which, in my view, is that the majority of those who were recruited for this mission are from the east of the Nile and the Butana plains, who were expelled by their local communities, and it is likely that their only motivation is quest for spoils. Each three of them ride a “motorcycles” and raid in groups. On the quiet villages in the Butana Plain, they replace motorcycles with vehicles and whatever supplies and money they can, while the most trained and armed groups remain at the driving wheel, searching for a false victory and supervising the spread of the greatest amount of chaos, destruction, and intimidation.
The final destination of these wandering groups may not be any Sudanese city, and it is likely that they are planning to reach a border city such as Al-Qalabat, for example, to be a gathering point and a starting point for supplies and upcoming chaotic activity in which they will receive various types of support. If this reading is correct, the focus will be on this escape march for spoils and looting. They realize that trying to control any major city in eastern Sudan would be a form of suicide.

One regrets to say that the entire operation demonstrated the fragility of self-awareness among a wide segment of people, and a great deal of psychological submission and belief in the enemy’s narrative even among the elites, as many of the supporters of the Armed Forces are fed up and had suspicions about their army, to the point that some almost demand that the militia’s conditions be accepted to stop the war, and this, definitely is a dangerous indicator that should be paid attention to, and the defect that led to it should be addressed as quickly as possible.
The defect that almost led to psychological defeat is primarily a defect in the way the battle is managed. The battle like our people and their valiant army is not fought from a single front, but rather from several mutually reinforcing fronts, which we have previously referred to and named in more than one article, and what we are interested in pointing out here is the media front and its related moral guidance aimed at fortifying public opinion against the rumors and disinformation in which the enemy’s rooms are active. The required fortification is a combination of honesty in conveying the facts, exposing the enemy’s propaganda, and initiative in conveying the correct narrative and preparing public opinion for what might happen, without contributing to revealing the intentions and plans of the armed forces and the forces supporting them. There is no doubt that this is a very precise equation that requires people with expertise and practical background.
It may be true to say that the path to complete victory over the militia and its supporters at home and abroad still needs to be completed, and that this requires that battle management plans on various fronts be continuously reviewed and some of them changed, in order to fill any gaps, both apparent and hidden. This is something that requires political will ahead of proper planning.
We must renew our faith in the justice of our people’s cause as they fight the battle for the survival of the state, and in the eventuality of their victory in it, and we must rely on the Grantor of victory after we have completed our best of good planning and management on all fronts.