Exclusive: Egypt and Turkey boost support for Sudan's army following RSF capture of el-Fasher

Sudanese Armed Forces coordinating with regional allies following atrocities by Rapid Support Forces in North Darfur and Kordofan

06.11.2025

By MEE correspondent in Cairo and Oscar Rickett in London and Ragip Soylu in Ankara

Source: https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/egypt-and-turkey-move-support-saf-following-fall-el-fasher

When the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) seized el-Fasher in Darfur, Egypt did not just see another battle in Sudan’s war, it saw a potential breach in its own defences.

As RSF fighters subject the people of el-Fasher to a litany of abuses, Cairo is reimagining its southern borders as a first line of defence.

The fall of North Darfur’s capital is a turning point. Egypt has always played a part in this war. The Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), which has been fighting the RSF since April 2023, enjoys a longstanding relationship with Egypt’s military, and Cairo has helped its ally throughout the war.

But the RSF's capture of the Sudanese section of the arid triangle border region that includes parts of Egypt and Libya in June, followed by the horrors of el-Fasher, represents a turning point.

Fearing that, unchecked, the war could spill over its frontiers, the government of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi is redrawing its security map, combining military coordination with diplomacy to contain the fallout.

Meanwhile, the SAF and its Joint Forces allies, which were outgunned in el-Fasher by superior weaponry and technology provided by Egypt's ally the United Arab Emirates, is in search of more help, according to Sudanese diplomats who briefed MEE.

“SAF expects Egypt and Turkey to provide it with weapons after the fall of el-Fasher,” Kholood Khair, a Sudanese analyst and director of the Confluence Advisory think tank, told MEE. “Egypt in particular has a stake in securing its southern border and is apprehensive about the RSF’s deployments towards it.”

With this in mind, Egypt has quietly reinforced its positions along the frontier with Sudan and Libya. Rather than waiting for danger to reach its gates, it is working closely with Sudan’s army to push it back.

Egypt moves to help the SAF

A senior Egyptian military intelligence source told Middle East Eye that “cooperation has been underway between the Egyptian and Sudanese armies to set up a joint command force to deter RSF and any possible infiltration into Egypt through the borders with Sudan or Libya.”

The urgency of the situation for Cairo was underscored when the Egyptian army’s chief of staff, Lieutenant General Ahmed Fathi, made two visits within 24 hours - first to Saudi Arabia, then to Port Sudan, currently the home of Sudan’s army-backed government.

In Saudi Arabia, which is believed to favour the SAF in Sudan's war, Fathi co-chaired the Egyptian-Saudi Military Cooperation Committee. In Sudan, he coordinated operational plans along the shared border.

According to the same Egyptian source, the visit paved the way for a joint operations room in North Kordofan and new early-warning radar systems. At the same time as it was capturing el-Fasher, the RSF was also taking Bara, a town in North Kordofan.

This region of Sudan is rich in oil. But Bara is also about four hours from the capital Khartoum and its twin city, Omdurman. The RSF, which took the capital region at the beginning of the war but lost it to the SAF in March this year, is believed to be planning an attack on Omdurman

“The RSF’s planned attack on Omdurman in the coming months could hasten Cairo’s involvement as the capital has always been a red line for the Egyptians,” Khair said.

The senior Egyptian military intelligence source said: “The joint operations room in Kordofan will enable Egypt to restore the Sudanese army’s presence in areas recently seized by the RSF… regaining control of Darfur is vital for regional stability and safeguarding Egypt’s borders.”

Cairo's strategic shift

On the ground, Egypt has mobilised troops along both its Sudanese and Libyan frontiers, conducting continuous air patrols.

“The Egyptian Air Force has avoided approaching RSF-controlled zones in Sudan, wary of the paramilitary’s mobile air-defence systems. Egyptian patrols conduct reconnaissance solely within Egyptian territory, ensuring continuous monitoring without violating Sudanese airspace,” the source explained.

Another official Egyptian source told MEE that “Egypt has supplied Sudan under Sudanese General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan with operational guidance and weapons, coordinating troop deployments to confront the RSF.”

The source warned that “mistakes or delays in responding to RSF movements could threaten Egypt’s border security”.

For Egypt, the capture of el-Fasher was not just a loss for the Sudanese army but a warning of how fragile regional stability has become.

The town had long been a link between east and west Darfur, and its fall effectively splits the vast western region of Sudan, which is now under the RSF’s control, from the rest of the country. This, once again, raises the prospect that Sudan will break in two.

The RSF’s capture of the Sudanese part of the triangle region and of el-Fasher also gives it control over crucial trade and smuggling routes that run towards Libya and Chad. Egypt has profited from gold smuggling out of Sudan during the war and does not want an uncontrollable force in charge of these routes.

“The RSF’s growing power creates a vacuum that non-state actors can exploit,” a Cairo-based political analyst told MEE, speaking on condition of anonymity because of safety concerns. “For Egypt, this is not just about solidarity with Sudan but about protecting its own southern flank.”

The UAE in Sudan

The rise of the RSF and the atrocities it is committing in el-Fasher has brought greater attention to the role played by the United Arab Emirates in Sudan’s war.

Though Abu Dhabi denies it, extensive reporting from Middle East Eye using satellite imagery, flight and ship tracking data, video evidence, weapons serial numbers and multiple sources from across the region, indicates that the UAE has supplied weapons to the RSF throughout the war.

Using routes that include the port of Bosaso in Somalia’s Puntland region, bases in southeastern Libya under the control of General Khalifa Haftar, Chad, the Central African Republic and airbases in Uganda, the UAE, which has a longstanding relationship with Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, the RSF chief better known as Hemedti, has been able to transport supplies to two bases inside Sudan, Nyala in South Darfur and al-Malha, 200km from el-Fasher.

The RSF contributed at least 40,000 fighters to the UAE’s coalition in Yemen a decade ago, and Hemedti’s financial links to the Gulf state, which are primarily in gold and agricultural land, have helped him amass an estimated fortune of $7bn.

The US has previously accused the RSF of genocide in Darfur and sanctioned RSF leaders. Egypt, whose ailing economy is dependent on what US President Donald Trump called the “unbelievable cash” of the UAE, is juggling diplomacy with an increasingly militarised policy on its borders.

Support from Turkey

In a significant development, the Egyptian and Turkish armies have begun cooperating directly over Sudan, marking a rare convergence between two regional rivals.

According to a high-level Egyptian security source, the coordination focuses on supporting the SAF to contain RSF territorial gains and stabilise Darfur.

“Preparations are underway for a potential future offensive to retake el-Fasher and surrounding territories, including measures to prevent any foreign air support from reaching RSF units,” the source told MEE, without elaborating further.

A Turkish source with direct knowledge of the matter told Middle East Eye that Turkey is planning to increase its support for the Sudanese army.

“We were already planning to send more systems, but the el-Fasher pogroms have only strengthened our resolve,” the source said.

Turkey has, since last year, supplied the SAF with military drones, air-to-surface missiles and command centres. The Turkish source said this support would continue. Turkish drone operators have also been active inside Sudan.

The Turkish source argued that Ankara could not supply air defence systems to the SAF because it had a limited quantity of such locally produced equipment.

Corroborating MEE’s Egyptian and Sudanese sources, Turkish sources said that Egypt had been quietly backing the Sudanese army throughout the war. “Now,” one of these insiders said, “the Egyptians are comfortable being more visible, since the RSF disrupted diplomatic negotiations in Washington.”

Sudanese parties have been negotiating in Washington for over two weeks, even as el-Fasher has been terrorised. The RSF’s team includes Algoney Dagalo, who is under US sanctions but has been staying at the Waldorf Astoria hotel. Algoney is the brother of RSF commander Hemedti.

“It is now almost certain that SAF has rejected the ceasefire,” Khair said. “This will be embarrassing for Cairo, after Trump effectively charged Sisi with securing SAF’s buy-in to the American plan. Cairo now has to pull away from its preferred role in the region as peacemaker and possibly become even more entrenched in Sudan’s war.”

To counter the split between RSF-controlled Darfur and the rest of Sudan, Egypt and the Sudanese army are establishing another joint operations room in el-Obeid, North Kordofan, to coordinate efforts to halt RSF advances and reclaim key towns.

“This will allow for the Sudanese army’s presence in areas recently taken by the RSF and stabilise the wider region,” the high-level Egyptian security source said.