PORT SUDAN, Sudan: An engineer at Sudan’s largest oil field said Monday that the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces had seized the facility along the country’s southern border, forcing the evacuation of its staff.
Sudan’s energy and petroleum ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the reported capture of the Heglig field, located in the resource-rich Kordofan region.
“This morning the RSF took control of the field. Our technical teams shut it down and halted production, and the workers were evacuated to South Sudan,” the engineer said by phone from across the border.
Since April of 2023, the RSF has been waging a war with the regular army that has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced 12 million more and decimated the country’s already fragile infrastructure.
The Heglig field is the country’s largest, and is also the main processing facility for South Sudan’s oil exports, which make up nearly all of Juba’s government revenue.
“The processing plant near the field through which South Sudanese oil passes was also shut down,” the engineer said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
The army has repeatedly accused the RSF of launching drone strikes on Heglig, prompting authorities to temporarily suspend operations there in August.
Heglig lies in the far south of Sudan’s Kordofan region, which has seen fierce fighting in recent weeks as the two sides wrestle for territory.
A drone attack in South Kordofan state blamed on the RSF hit a kindergarten and a hospital last week, killing dozens of civilians, including children, according to a local official and army-aligned foreign ministry.
In October, the RSF pushed army troops out of their last position in the western Darfur region, putting the military on the defensive as it tries to halt the paramilitary advance through Kordofan and back toward the capital Khartoum.
Sudan is now effectively split in two, with the army holding the north, east and center, and the RSF in control of the west and, with the help of its allies, swathes of the south.
Sudan paramilitary seizes key oil field: engineer
https://arab.news/re5gf
Sudan paramilitary seizes key oil field: engineer
- Sudan’s energy and petroleum ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the reported capture of the Heglig field
- The Heglig field is the country’s largest, and is also the main processing facility for South Sudan’s oil exports
Soleimani warned Al-Assad about ‘spy’ Luna Al-Shibl: Al-Majalla
LONDON: The late Iranian General Qassem Soleimani confronted Syria’s National Security Bureau chief Ali Mamlouk in late 2019 after seeing Luna Al-Shibl leaving his office. Al-Majalla magazine claims its reporters reviewed a document containing the full Arabic transcript of their exchange.
Soleimani reportedly asked, “Who is this?” and Mamlouk replied, “She is Louna Al-Shibl, the president’s adviser.”
The Quds Force commander pressed further: “I know, I know… but who is she really? Where did she work?”
According to Al-Majalla, a sister publication of Arab News, he said her former salary was “ten thousand dollars,” compared with her current salary of “five hundred thousand Syrian pounds,” before asking: “Does it make sense for someone to leave ten thousand dollars for five hundred thousand pounds? She is a spy.”
Both Soleimani and Maher Al-Assad, commander of the Syrian army’s powerful Fourth Division, had warned the ousted president’s inner circle about Al-Shibl, Al-Majalla reported.
‘Suspicious’ car crash
On July 2, 2024, Al-Shibl was involved in what officials described as a traffic accident on the Damascus-Dimas highway. She was hospitalized and died four days later.
But Al-Majalla reported that photos of her armored BMW showed only minor damage, raising immediate questions among those close to the case.
Eyewitnesses told the magazine that the crash was intentional. One said, “a car approached and rammed her vehicle,” and before her bodyguard could exit, “a man attacked her and struck her on the back of the head,” causing paralysis that led to her death.
She was first taken to Al-Saboura clinic, then transferred to Al-Shami Hospital. Several senior regime-linked figures, including businessman Mohammed Hamsho and an aide to Maher Al-Assad, were present when her condition deteriorated. One witness told Al-Majalla that when her bodyguard tried to explain what had happened, “he was arrested immediately in front of the others.”
The presidency later issued a brief statement announcing her death. Her funeral was attended only by a handful of officials. Then president Al-Assad did not attend.
