Sudan's Rapid Support Forces launched coordinated attacks Monday in the Kordofan region in an apparent attempt to isolate a strategic city, while also striking towns along the border with Chad, according to RSF and army sources.
Paramilitary fighters simultaneously hit the North Kordofan city of Bara, according to a paramilitary source, as well as the South Kordofan city of Dilling, according to another from the army, striking two stepping stones on the way to the major hub of el-Obeid.
Both sources requested anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to the media.
Kordofan is currently the fiercest battlefield in the three-year war between the army and the RSF that has killed tens of thousands and created the world's largest hunger and displacement crises.
Near-daily drone strikes kill dozens at a time across the region, where hundreds of thousands are threatened by mass starvation.
The RSF source said "our forces have recaptured Bara," which lies on a key highway linking the army-held capital Khartoum with el-Obeid, Kordofan's biggest city.
Bara – a key staging post for attacks on el-Obeid – has repeatedly changed hands, most recently falling to the army earlier this month.
Some 200 kilometers (130 miles) south, the RSF and their local allies attacked the South Kordofan city of Dilling "from three axes," an army source told AFP.
The army broke a yearslong paramilitary siege on Dilling in January and the RSF has launched artillery and drone strikes on it since.
"Our forces repelled the attack launched by the RSF and Abdelaziz al-Hilu's forces," the army source said, referring to a faction of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North.
Halfway between Bara and Dilling lies el-Obeid, which the RSF has been trying to encircle again ever since the army broke a siege there last year.
Its capture would secure Sudan's central east-west axis, linking RSF strongholds in the Darfur region to the army-controlled east and bringing the paramilitary closer to Khartoum.
Last year, the RSF consolidated its hold on the west by seizing North Darfur state capital el-Fasher, going on to commit what a U.N. probe determined were "acts of genocide" there.
It has since pushed west to the Chadian border, through enclaves controlled by the Joint Forces, a group of pro-army militias.
RSF fighters again attacked the border town of al-Tina and nearby Kernoi Monday, the RSF source and another from the Joint Forces said.
Tens of thousands have already fled across the border, and the U.N.'s famine experts have warned that thresholds for acute malnutrition have been surpassed in Kernoi and surrounding areas.
The two militias have repeatedly wrestled for control of Al-Tina, the twin town of Tine in Chad, which closed the border last month.
In successive border clashes, 15 Chadian soldiers and eight civilians have been killed since December, according to an AFP count.
