Sudan's military announced on Sunday that it has recaptured the Al Sadarat highway, a 350-kilometre route connecting the capital, Khartoum, with El Obeid (the capital of North Kordofan state in central Sudan), which has been under siege by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a rival paramilitary group engaged in a civil war with the army since April 2023. The army said its troops retook several towns along the corridor after two days of intense fighting, marking the first significant offensive against the RSF in months. Control of the highway is strategically critical: it allows the army to move troops and supplies more efficiently to El Obeid, where roughly half a million civilians are trapped under RSF drone attacks and facing acute humanitarian crisis, while also blocking the RSF's ambition to seize all of western Sudan.