Hemedti

Overview

Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, widely known as Hemedti, is a Sudanese commander and political leader who heads the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). He rose from command of forces rooted in the Janjaweed militias of Darfur to become one of the most powerful figures in Sudan. After the overthrow of President Omar al-Bashir in 2019, Hemedti held senior office alongside army leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan. Their alliance collapsed, and their forces went to war in April 2023. Hemedti’s military and diplomatic ascent remains inseparable from the RSF’s record of atrocities in Darfur and its conduct during the civil war. ^[1][9][14]

Hemedti’s career illustrates the extent to which an armed force outside Sudan’s regular army could acquire state authority. The RSF gained a formal place in Sudan’s security system, financial resources and political influence while retaining its own command. Hemedti served as deputy to al-Burhan in the transitional leadership, supported normalization with Israel and cultivated contacts abroad. He also became al-Burhan’s principal armed rival. Their war devastated Khartoum, displaced civilians and prevented implementation of Sudan’s normalization agreement with Israel under the Abraham Accords. ^{[1][4][5][13]}

Career

Hemedti’s rise began in Darfur, where the Janjaweed militias became notorious during the conflict that began in the early 2000s. The RSF grew out of those forces and became a major paramilitary organization under his command. Its later recognition within Sudan’s political and security system gave Hemedti a national platform, but formal status did not erase the militia’s history. The RSF’s involvement in the genocide in Darfur is central to understanding both the power Hemedti accumulated and the objections to treating him as an ordinary statesman. During the war that began in 2023, RSF members and allied militias again committed atrocities in Darfur; the United States made a genocide determination concerning their actions and sanctioned Hemedti in January 2025. ^[1][9][14]

Before becoming a national officeholder, Hemedti expanded the RSF’s reach into the capital. Its forces had previously been confined to Khartoum’s outskirts. After entering the city, he cooperated with Sudanese army leaders and attracted supporters from their ranks. Financial benefits offered by the RSF led some capable army officers to seek assignments with it. These relationships strengthened the force militarily and made it a powerful political actor in Khartoum. Hemedti held the rank of lieutenant general, yet his authority rested on command of an organization separate from the regular army. That separate power base later became a decisive issue in his confrontation with al-Burhan. ^[1][11]

Mass demonstrations preceded the military overthrow of Bashir in 2019. Hemedti allied with Sudan’s Security Committee, whose members managed the security and political transition and later formed the transitional military council. His support helped secure Bashir’s removal and placed the RSF within the new ruling arrangement. Hemedti became vice president of the military council and, after Bashir’s ouster, Sudan’s second most powerful man. His advancement was therefore tied both to the public revolt against Bashir and to an agreement among armed leaders who controlled the transition. ^[1][4]

Sudan’s subsequent Sovereignty Council combined civilian and military representatives in an 11-member transitional body. Al-Burhan chaired it, with Hemedti as his deputy. The arrangement gave the RSF commander a central role in national decisions while the civilian government, led by Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, sought to guide Sudan toward elections. Tensions between civilian and military leaders persisted. Al-Burhan and Hemedti acted together in the October 2021 coup against the transitional government, extending military dominance over the political process. Their partnership survived that rupture but did not resolve the question of whether the RSF would remain an autonomous force. ^[4][9][14]

Hemedti also developed an international profile. Western and U.S. envoys made meetings with him a priority during visits to Sudan, and he cultivated connections with actors in Ethiopia, Libya and the Central African Republic, as well as Kenya and Israel. Foreign engagement strengthened his standing and widened his options beyond Sudanese politics. It did not diminish the significance of the RSF’s record in Darfur or the risk its brutality posed to civilians. His alliances served his ambition to exercise power in Sudan and helped the RSF compete with the army for influence, resources and external support. ^[1][9]

Gold was another part of the network around Hemedti. Sudanese gold moved through Dubai and onward to Russia through relationships involving the Wagner Group, Libyan commander Khalifa Haftar and figures in Moscow. Wagner supported Hemedti’s camp during the civil war and operated a gold-processing plant in RSF-controlled territory. Haftar, commander of the Libyan National Army, was among the external actors supporting him. These ties linked the RSF’s battlefield position to cross-border commerce and armed networks, giving Hemedti sources of support beyond the institutions of the Sudanese state. ^[2][7][8]

Ideology and statements

Hemedti publicly supported normalization of Sudan’s relations with Israel. His position differed from that of civilian Prime Minister Hamdok, who insisted that engagement with Israel first required dialogue within Sudanese society. Al-Burhan also backed normalization and met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in February 2020. Hemedti promoted the policy in public, presenting ties with Israel as beneficial to Sudan. His support formed part of a broader pursuit of foreign relationships while he and al-Burhan held power in the transitional government. ^[4][11]

Sudan’s agreement to normalize relations with Israel was associated with Washington’s removal of Sudan from its State Sponsors of Terrorism list and the prospect of substantial financial assistance. Economic relief mattered to leaders facing a fragile transition after Bashir’s fall. Sudan’s civil war later obstructed implementation of the agreement. Hemedti’s endorsement was explicit, and al-Burhan continued to express support even after they became enemies, but neither man’s position produced stable Sudan–Israel relations amid the fighting. Their competing bids for authority and the destruction caused by their war displaced the agreement from Sudan’s immediate political agenda. ^[4][5][12]

As the war developed, Hemedti presented the RSF as a force with a political future beyond the battlefield. His diplomatic contacts and his attempt to establish an alternative administration reflected that ambition. Such claims to authority must be considered alongside the conduct of the forces he commands. Hemedti appeared in a video urging his fighters to hold Khartoum’s presidential palace against the army. After the army regained the capital, he described the RSF withdrawal as tactical and pledged to return. These statements showed his determination to continue the contest for power despite major territorial setbacks. ^[1][3][13]

Role in attacks or conflicts

The immediate rupture between Hemedti and al-Burhan centered on plans to integrate the RSF into Sudan’s regular army. Both had benefited from their alliance after Bashir’s fall and had joined in the 2021 coup, but integration threatened the RSF’s independent chain of command and the power Hemedti derived from it. In April 2023, fighting began between his forces and the Sudanese Armed Forces under al-Burhan. The confrontation became the Sudanese civil war. Khartoum was the center of the initial struggle, and combat spread to other cities and regions. ^[9][13]

The war devastated Khartoum and other Sudanese cities. Homes and public infrastructure were damaged or destroyed, neighborhoods were looted, and civilians faced killings, sexual violence and displacement. Residents fled cities and villages when they learned that RSF forces were approaching, fearing for their lives and property because of the force’s reputation for brutality. Darfur again became a center of grave abuses. The United States determined in January 2025 that RSF members and allied militias had committed acts of genocide there and imposed sanctions on Hemedti. The army has also been accused of attacks on civilians; those actions do not lessen the RSF’s responsibility for abuses by its members and allies. ^{[1][7][9][13][14]}

Control of Khartoum carried military and political weight. The RSF’s positions in the city and its access to key bridges helped sustain its campaign against the army. Hemedti urged his soldiers not to surrender the presidential palace, a symbol of national authority. In March 2025, Sudanese army forces under al-Burhan captured the palace despite that appeal. The army subsequently retook Khartoum, ending a long period in which the capital had been a principal RSF stronghold. Hemedti remained at the head of a force fighting elsewhere in Sudan, so the loss of the palace did not end the civil war. ^[3][13]

Outside powers shaped the rivalry. The United Arab Emirates backed Hemedti and the RSF, while Saudi Arabia supported al-Burhan’s army. Wagner aided Hemedti’s camp, and Haftar’s network connected the RSF to Libya. Al-Burhan, in turn, drew on renewed relations with the Iranian regime for military assistance. Such support gave each side resources to continue fighting and complicated efforts to reach a political settlement. The opposing alignments also prolonged Sudan’s instability and blocked implementation of its agreement with Israel. ^{[2][5][6][8][9]}

Sudan’s war placed additional pressure on Egypt. President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi favored al-Burhan as Sudan’s governing force and viewed Hemedti as a rogue operator. Before the war, Egyptian and Sudanese forces had held the joint “Nile Eagles 2” exercises in March 2021. Egyptian personnel were stationed at Sudan’s Merowe base when fighting began. As the conflict continued, Hemedti accused the Egyptian army of attacking RSF positions at Jabal Moya in Sennar State, and his forces accused Egyptian aircraft of bombing RSF camps. These were accusations by Hemedti’s side, not established descriptions of Egyptian operations. ^[2]

The conflict also disrupted Egyptian–Sudanese cooperation over Nile water security. Egypt faced an influx of people fleeing Sudan and greater exposure to possible cross-border incursions, weapons smuggling and human trafficking. The long border increased the difficulty of containing those risks while al-Burhan concentrated military resources on the RSF. Sudan’s fighting thus affected security beyond its borders: a dispute over command of armed forces and control of the capital became a regional crisis involving migration, trade routes and neighboring states’ strategic interests. ^[2]

Death or current status

Hemedti remained RSF commander after the army’s recapture of Khartoum. In March 2025, he announced a parallel Sudanese government in Kenya. RSF members and allied militia and political leaders signed a charter intended to consolidate authority over territory held by their forces. The initiative extended his contest with al-Burhan from the battlefield into competing claims to govern Sudan. It also raised concern that separate administrations could deepen the country’s division and make a settlement more difficult. ^[3][13]

Later RSF setbacks did not end Hemedti’s campaign. In July 2026, he called for further mobilization and a renewed offensive toward Khartoum while the RSF continued operations in Kordofan. His statements showed that, despite losing the presidential palace and then the capital, he still sought to direct the force’s military and political strategy. The civil war remained unresolved, and the RSF continued to hold territory and draw on the networks Hemedti had built during his rise to national power. ^[15]

Legacy

Hemedti’s ascent transformed the RSF from a Darfur militia successor into a force able to contend with Sudan’s regular army for control of the state. His path through Bashir’s overthrow, the military council, the Sovereignty Council and the 2021 coup exposed the fragility of a transition in which rival commanders retained separate armed organizations. His foreign contacts and official posts brought recognition, but they did not confer legitimacy on the RSF’s violence. The genocide in Darfur, renewed atrocities during the civil war and mass displacement remain central to any account of his political career. ^[1][9][14]

His rivalry with al-Burhan also shaped Sudan’s relations abroad. Both men favored normalization with Israel, yet their war obstructed the agreement’s implementation. External backing for opposing camps helped sustain the conflict, while the devastation of Khartoum and the flight of civilians made political recovery harder. Hemedti’s parallel-government initiative demonstrated that he continued to seek national authority after losing the capital. His legacy is therefore bound to the unresolved struggle over Sudan’s government, the consequences of giving an autonomous paramilitary force state power and the civilian harm caused by that struggle. ^{[3][5][9][13]}