The war in Sudan has so far been marked by a lot of incompetency and mismanagement by government forces (the SAF). After months of bitter fighting, in late 2023, the opposing Rapid Support Forces suddenly expanded their control towards the southeast of Khartoum after not a lot of resistance, most notably taking the city of Wad Madani. This led the SAF supporters and officials to panic and point fingers at each other about what the hell the army is even doing, while RSF soldiers looted the city.
These victories led to a short period in late December and early January where diplomacy and peace talks were considered, but such attempts fell apart. The leader of the RSF visited various African countries, including meeting Paul Kagame in Rwanda, to boost his legitimacy. Then, the RSF attacked into South Kordofan and consolidated their hold on other areas.
The Sudanese capital of Khartoum sits on a river which divides it from the city to its west, Omdurman (see the post image). The SAF and RSF have been fighting over this grand urban area for the whole war, with the RSF holding most of Khartoum (with an entirely cut-off SAF force holding on in the center), with a similarly cut-off SAF force also in eastern Omdurman, up against the river. For 10 months, this force has been under siege - but no longer. In perhaps the first actual W of the war for the SAF, they finally managed to break the siege a week ago, pouring supplies in. This leaves a section of the RSF now cut off, though Omdurman is still not under full SAF control (and, who knows, the whole situation could once again go badly for the SAF).
Meanwhile, the Sudanese socioeconomic situation has completely collapsed, with potentially a 20% fall in GDP and 8 million people displaced, with 2 million from Khartoum alone. 18 million Sudanese, or about a third of the population, is in acute hunger, and 20 million children are out in school. The refugees streaming out of the country are causing knock-on effects in neighorboring countries like Chad. Nobody is even really counting the dead anymore.
Red is the government forces, the SAF. Blue is the RSF opposition. Other colours are various factions.
The Country of the Week is Sudan! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
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Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA daily-ish reports on Israel's destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it's just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a 'propaganda tax', if you don't believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
Aaron Mate is the most vindicated man on Earth
https://www.opcw.org/media-centre/news/2024/02/opcw-identifies-isil-perpetrators-2015-chemical-attack-marea-syria
They finally admit it. He spent years interviewing people and investigating the source of the chemical attacks and they just tweeted it out
Leftlib dumbfucks spent so many years trying to bash us for being skeptics of the western narrative that Assad was using chemical weapons.
I have never been more reviled among the western left then when I told them Assad never gassed anybody. They were full sippin' that rojava tea at the time and even though Assad and the kurds weren't even enemies they had gotten it in their heads that Assad and Erdogan were the same person basically, both evil capitalist dictator tyrants.
How though? Even cringe libertarians and politically non affiliated people in the West called out the media narrative surrounding Assad and the chemical weapons attacks.
Imagine being more wrong/to the right of a libertarian
Well there's your problem.
There is a worrying majority of people on the left, both communist or non-communist, who would rather stay on the wrong side of history rather than agree with their enemies.
Moral victories in their eyes are superior to material victories.
Cringe Libertarians are neutral know-nothing libs legitimately had a better stance on Syria (idk this is complicated I don’t want to get involved) than western Radlibs and leftoids, who were full throated imperialists on a crusade against “Assadists”
No cringe libertarian ever called me Assadist
I do feel kind of vindicated for my consistent decade long vibes based stance that "chemical weapons suck and would immediately make everyone super mad. Why would Assad use them instead of killing people the normal, international law approved way?"
Especially because Assad was winning at that point. It was after Russia joined and Syrian rebels were getting swept aside that the chemical attacks took place.
It makes no sense to use chemical attacks when you are already winning the conventional way. It makes a lot more sense for the opposition to use it for a desperate false flag though.
we all agree that ISIS is a US proxy, but surely it's more direct than them just benefiting US interests right, are they getting direct help?
yes. they are getting direct money and weapons and training. In Syria that's what is happening at Al-Tanf base, they're training Al Qaeda / Al Nusra front insurgents
israel openly admitted to treating wounded isis fighters.
really? 👀
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2017-06-19/ty-article/israel-reportedly-providing-direct-aid-to-syrian-rebels/0000017f-f06c-d223-a97f-fdfdfef50000
i love how they still say 'syrian rebels'
I mean it is pretty crazy that the super ultra terrorists came into power at the exact time the us needed a new reason to continue its campaign in the Middle East innit?
Crazy how ISIS was created in US occupied Iraq and spread into America’s number one enemy in the region instead of anywhere else huh? So weird how ISIS only ever attacked Israel one time on accident and apologized.
Texas Plumber Sues Car Dealer After His Truck Ends Up on Syria’s Front Lines
Videos appeared of Al Qaeda affiliates receiving javelin and TOW missiles after Russia started its aerial campaign in Syria in 2015, so sometimes the US does give terrorists weapons shipments.
Natopedia glosses over it
This is not the same attack. Maté spent years investigating a different chemical attack that happened in Douma, southwestern Syria. ISIL never got anywhere near Douma and were definitely not responsible for the attack that Maté has been investigating.
The Douma attacks were done by FSA, which nowadays has functionally merged with ISIL and the Al Nusra front.
Point remains, the western authorities are finally admitting Assad never did any chemical attacks and it was in fact their own proxies that did so