KHARTOUM: Sudan’s army said on Friday it had killed Ali Yagoub Gibril, a senior commander for the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) who was under US sanctions, during a battle in the besieged north Darfur city of Al-Fashir.
There was no immediate comment from the RSF.
Gibril was a leading commander for the RSF in Al-Fashir, the last major city in the Darfur region of Sudan that the paramilitary force does not control.
The army said in a statement Yacoub was killed as an RSF attack was thwarted early on Friday by its troops and allied “joint forces” fighting alongside it — a reference to non-Arab former rebel groups from Darfur that are aligned with the army.
The RSF has been besieging Al-Fashir, a city of 1.8 million people, for weeks and top UN officials have warned that the worsening conflict there could trigger widespread intercommunal violence.
The UN Security Council called on Thursday for a halt to the siege.
War between the army and the RSF erupted over conditions for a transition to democracy in mid-April last year in the capital Khartoum, soon spreading to other parts of the country.
The conflict has led to the world’s largest displacement crisis, renewed ethnic violence in Darfur blamed on the RSF and its allies, and a sharp increase in extreme hunger.
Sudan’s army says it has killed US-sanctioned RSF Darfur commander
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Sudan’s army says it has killed US-sanctioned RSF Darfur commander
- Gibril was a leading commander for the RSF in Al-Fashir
Palestinian president affirms efforts to release Marwan Barghouti from Israeli prison
- Mahmoud Abbas praised Barghouti’s resilience during a meeting with his wife, Fadwa, at presidential headquarters in Ramallah
LONDON: President Mahmoud Abbas emphasized the Palestinian Authority’s efforts to support calls for the release of senior Fatah leader and Central Committee member Marwan Barghouti from an Israeli prison.
On Tuesday, Abbas received Fadwa Barghouti, his wife, at the presidential headquarters in Ramallah, affirming that his release has always been a top priority for both the presidency and the Fatah movement.
Abbas praised Barghouti, who has been in Israeli prisons since April 2002 after receiving five life sentences plus 40 years for his conviction of carrying out deadly attacks on Israelis during the peak of the Second Intifada of 2000.
Hamas proposed Barghouti’s name on the list of prisoners to be exchanged for Israeli captives, but Israel declined to release him in October. The 66-year-old national figure also served over four years in prison in 1978 for political activism. Analysts have long seen him as a potential presidential candidate if and when he is released from prison.
His family accused Israel Prison Service officers of having beaten him unconscious. In August, the Israeli far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir posted video footage showing him visiting Barghouti in prison and making threatening remarks to him.
