Al-Mazroub gives Sudan’s army a gain — and a better shot at the RSF’s supply route
The capture of the North Kordofan town matters less as a trophy than as leverage in a war increasingly decided by corridors, not declarations.
Sudan’s army has announced another advance, and this one is not being sold as a symbolic flourish. The Sudanese Armed Forces say they have taken al-Mazroub in North Kordofan after fierce battles with the Rapid Support Forces, describing the town as a major gain in one of the war’s central battlegrounds.
In its statement on Friday, the military said the fighting caused casualties among RSF fighters and heavy losses of combat vehicles. It also urged people in what it called the liberated areas to feel safe and return to normal life. That sort of reassurance is standard wartime theatre, though in Sudan the front line tends to have the final word.
The more revealing detail came from a Sudanese army source, who told Al Jazeera that al-Mazroub was the RSF’s largest stronghold in North Kordofan. Army Special Forces spokesman Mohammed Deidan, speaking to Anadolu, said the town connects North Kordofan and West Kordofan and that its capture supports the army’s effort to cut RSF supply lines. In other words, this is less about planting a flag than about interrupting a route.
That is what has made Kordofan so important. Fighting in the region has intensified since late 2025, turning it into one of the war’s main theatres as the conflict enters its fourth year. The broader geography explains why: the three Kordofan states sit between army-held central Sudan and Darfur, where the RSF controls territory in the west. Since the war began in April 2023, one in five recorded attacks in Sudan has taken place in Kordofan.
The balance across the region is uneven, but hardly settled. The army has the upper hand in the north, the RSF in the west, and South Kordofan remains contested. That fragmentation has also fed the country’s ethnic and political tensions, which have never needed much encouragement.
Last month, the Sudan Doctors Network accused the RSF-allied Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North of carrying out an artillery attack in Dilling, in South Kordofan. The SPLM-N is a breakaway faction of the SPLM, the governing party of neighbouring South Sudan. Its leader, Abdel Aziz al-Hilu, has aligned his fighters with the RSF and joined the RSF-led parallel government in Sudan.
So al-Mazroub is a gain, but not a neat turning point. It gives the army a better position in North Kordofan and may make life harder for the RSF’s logistics. Whether that changes the broader shape of the war is another matter. Sudan’s conflict has become a contest over routes, alliances and stubborn stretches of territory — the sort of unglamorous arithmetic that decides wars while official statements try to sound like victories already won.
Written by Christiane Hofreiter christiane.hofreiter@alpineweekly.com