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Op-Ed video: What if Hemeti's lost the war he started?

With fighting showing no signs of abating, the UAE, the main backer of General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, also known as Hemeti, might retreat from military adventures abroad

The latest fighting in Sudan was not an accident, but a carefully planned attack - one that would not be possible without the backing of the UAE's Mohammed bin Zayed, argues David Hearst, the co-founder and editor-in-chief of Middle East Eye.

"But, there's an indication now that if Hemeti loses there (will be) blowback. What Hemeti is doing is against the interest of another military dictator that had been funded and nurtured by the Emirates and Saudi Arabia, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the President of Egypt," he said.

Sudan has been gripped by violence since April 15 when disagreements between army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the head of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, otherwise known as Hemeti, escalated into an armed conflict. 

Hundreds of people have been killed in the battles that have turned the streets of the capital, Khartoum, and other places across the country into war zones.

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David Hearst is co-founder and editor-in-chief of Middle East Eye. He is a commentator and speaker on the region and analyst on Saudi Arabia. He was the Guardian's foreign leader writer, and was correspondent in Russia, Europe, and Belfast. He joined the Guardian from The Scotsman, where he was education correspondent.
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