Sudanese military forces pushed toward the presidential palace in the battle-scarred capital, Khartoum, on Thursday, signaling a potential turning point in Sudan’s devastating civil war, now approaching its third year.
Video footage showed Sudanese troops about 500 yards east of the palace compound, which overlooks the river Nile, and is controlled by the Rapid Support Forces, or R.S.F., the army’s powerful paramilitary rival.
Capturing the palace would be a major symbolic victory for Sudan’s army, which lost most of Khartoum to the R.S.F. in the early days of the war in April 2023. It would also significantly boost the military’s six-month-old drive to push the paramilitaries out of the city entirely.
Early on Thursday, the army launched a blistering ambush on an R.S.F. convoy south of the palace, video footage showed. For the rest of the day, gunfire and explosions could be heard across the capital.
The R.S.F. leader, Lt. Gen. Mohamed Hamdan, has vowed to stand his ground. “Do not think that we will retreat from the palace,” he said last week in a video address from an undisclosed location.
