“We Fired the First Bullet”: Confessions of the Rapid Support Forces’ Commander

By: Rukabi Hassan Yaqoub

In a speech to a gathering of his forces—his second public appearance in a month—the deputy commander of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), Abdelrahim Dagalo (brother of the militia’s leader, Hemetti, whose fate remains unknown), delivered an impromptu and highly emotional address. The speech was marked by enthusiasm, confusion, contradictions, and shifting tones between threats and reassurances. It was riddled with inconsistencies, exaggerations, and retractions.

Delivered on the second day of Eid al-Fitr, Abdelrahim Dagalo’s address covered a wide range of topics related to the war, the RSF’s positions, its plans, and intentions for the coming phase. He insisted that his forces were “not yet finished,” even claiming that they had “one million soldiers” ready to continue fighting.

Many observers dismissed this as a baseless exaggeration, considering the string of defeats the RSF has suffered over the past four months across all battlefronts—from the states of Al-Jazirah, Sennar, Blue Nile, White Nile, and Kordofan to the capital, Khartoum. The army recently reclaimed the RSF’s last major stronghold in Khartoum—the strategically significant area of Al-Salha in southwestern Omdurman. This casts further doubt on Dagalo’s claim of having a million soldiers.

However, the most significant part of Dagalo’s speech, which drew widespread attention from the press and Sudanese public, involved two revelations that had been the subject of much debate since the war began.

The first—and most important—was his admission that the RSF should have launched its attack not on Khartoum but on the Northern and River Nile states, calling Khartoum a “mistaken” target. He then warned that their next destination would indeed be those two states. This forms the second critical point.

These statements revealed two of the gravest issues related to the war, which is about to enter its third year and has already caused immense destruction, tens of thousands of deaths, hundreds of thousands of injuries and disabilities, millions of displaced people and refugees, and thousands of missing persons.

Abdelrahim Dagalo’s words amounted to a clear and full admission that the RSF started the war. This admission—one of the strongest forms of evidence—puts an end to the long-running debate over who fired the first shot: the army or the RSF. With this statement, Dagalo dismantled the narrative promoted by the RSF and its political wing, which has been presented at regional and international forums to garner sympathy. That narrative claimed the army attacked first.

Now, it is an established fact that the RSF ignited the war in Sudan with the intent to seize power by force and replace the army, aligning itself with the “Forces of Freedom and Change”—a political coalition that has gone by various names, the latest being “Ta’sees” (The Establishment), which serves as the RSF’s civilian political arm.

This confession will undoubtedly have serious legal and political consequences. It can be used by the Sudanese government in its legal case against the RSF, its political wing, and the regional powers supporting them. The Sudanese government has already submitted a robust case to international judicial bodies, which legal experts describe as strong and likely to yield favorable rulings for Sudan.

The second issue raised by Dagalo’s confession has both political and social dimensions. Politically, his remarks undermine the RSF’s claim that it is fighting to bring democracy, civilian rule, and to eradicate Islamists. Saying that they targeted the wrong area and should have attacked the Northern State instead makes it clear their intentions have nothing to do with democracy or civil rule.

Socially, Dagalo’s statement reveals an ethnic and regional vendetta, exposing the RSF’s failure to embrace the values of coexistence, tolerance, and reconciliation that have long characterized Sudan’s diverse society. It indicates a dangerous shift: transforming the conflict from a political struggle into an ethnic civil war—something unprecedented in modern Sudanese history.

This newly declared direction, coupled with the silence from the RSF’s political wing (which implies approval), signals the beginning of the end for both. It isolates them from Sudanese society and strengthens the unity of all other components of the nation, even those within the RSF’s own base that believe in a unified national identity.

The RSF has already suffered military defeats on the ground, losing its positions one by one. Experts say it’s only a matter of time before its remaining strongholds fall. Politically and socially, the RSF and its wing have also lost due to their vengeful and discriminatory agenda, as revealed by Abdelrahim Dagalo.

Ultimately, the RSF has scripted its own downfall. Its end came not at the hands of its enemies, but through its own actions.

This is the story of a man who, driven by the lust for power, sought to become the head of state by force. Instead, he vanished into obscurity, dragging an entire nation into catastrophe, only to end up losing everything—including the second-highest office he once held—without ever reaching the top.

It is a tragic tale of arrogance, political folly, and a complete lack of vision and experience—crafted by those who hoped to be heroes but became the authors of their own collapse.

Source: Al Jazeera Net