Who is the RSF commander controlling strategic East Darfur front  

KHARTOUM — A veteran commander with a career spanning both sides of Sudan’s long-running conflicts, Colonel Mohamed Nagi Obeid, is central to the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces’ (RSF) dominance of a strategic corridor linking the Darfur region with central Sudan.

His command in East Darfur is instrumental in securing the RSF’s main arteries for logistics, weapons, and reinforcements, making him a linchpin in the nearly three-year war against the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF).

Obeid commands the RSF’s 4^th Division headquarters at the former Sudanese military’s 20^th infantry division headquarters in Ed Daein, the capital of East Darfur.

His area of operations includes the Meiram corridor, a critical land route that connects RSF-held territory in Darfur with West Kordofan state and as well as with neighboring South Sudan’s Northern Bahr el Ghazal State.

This route allows the RSF to move fighters and supplies from its western strongholds towards fronts in central and eastern Sudan and also recruiting South Sudanese mercenaries into its rank, giving Obeid’s division a pivotal role in sustaining the group’s wider war effort.

WHO IS COLONEL OBEID?

Born in Ed Daein in 1979, Obeid is an ethnic Arab from the Rezaigat tribe, a key component of the RSF’s social base in Darfur.

His career reflects the shifting alliances that have defined Sudan’s conflicts. He began as a soldier in the regular army (SAF) in 1990 before joining the rebel Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) in the early 2000s during the first Darfur war.

After the 2006 Abuja Peace Agreement, he was integrated back into the state’s security apparatus as part of the SLA forces who signed the peace agreement along with Arko Minnaw’s breakaway SLA faction, graduating from the military academy as an army captain in 2008.

He later served in the notorious National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) before being absorbed into the newly formed RSF in 2013.

Within the RSF, Obeid rose through the field command structure, becoming a sector commander in West Darfur by 2018.

When the current war erupted in April 2023, he was wounded in fighting in the capital Khartoum before being redeployed to his home region of East Darfur.

There, he helped lead the operations that resulted in the RSF’s capture of the SAF’s 20^th Infantry Division headquarters of the Sudanese army in Ed Daein.

Earlier this year, Obeid was promoted to Commander of the RSF 4^th Division, establishing his headquarters in the very same army base his forces had seized, cementing RSF control over the state.

Military sources describe Obeid as one of the RSF’s most experienced field officers, with a background shaped by both formal army training and insurgent warfare.

His position at the intersection of Darfur’s frontlines and the Kordofan corridor gives him a crucial role in coordinating RSF logistics, recruitment, and cross-border operations.