Saudi Arabia has reportedly paid millions of dollars (up to $2.5 million each) to secure the defection of senior RSF commanders, including Ali Rizq Allah (“Al-Savanna”) and Major General Al-Nour Ahmed Adam (“Al-Nour Guba”), along with their fighters and equipment, to the SAF under General Burhan.

This “chequebook diplomacy” forms part of a broader Saudi strategy of backing the SAF against the RSF while publicly presenting itself as a mediator, aiming both to weaken the RSF from within and to curb Islamist influence within the SAF.

Critics argue the approach risks turning Sudan’s conflict into a marketplace of shifting loyalties, further fragmenting armed groups, rewarding controversial actors without accountability, and failing to produce a legitimate or durable political settlement.

Reports that Saudi Arabia has financed the defection of senior commanders from Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) mark a significant escalation in Riyadh’s role in the country’s civil war—and raise serious questions about whether such tactics can produce stability or merely reconfigure fragmentation.

According to reporting, Saudi Arabia provided millions of dollars to secure the allegiance of high-ranking RSF figures, including Ali Rizq Allah, known as........

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