Sudan's army says it has taken al-Mazroub, the RSF's main North Kordofan base

Sudan's army said on Friday, 2 October, that it had taken al-Mazroub in North Kordofan from the Rapid Support Forces. Mohammed Deidan, spokesman for the army's special forces, told Anadolu that the town was under full army control after the battles. An army source told Al Jazeera that al-Mazroub had been the RSF's largest stronghold in the state. The military statement said the fighting caused casualties among RSF fighters and the loss of combat vehicles. It did not give a count.

Deidan described the town as the link between North Kordofan and West Kordofan. Taking it, he said, advanced the army's aim of cutting RSF supply lines. Azzam Hamed, spokesman for the Dar Hamar Emergency Response Room, told Anadolu that the capture opens the road for the army into West Kordofan. The emergency room, a local civilian network, announced the same change of control in its own statement. Army personnel posted videos on social media saying they held the town. Those videos are not an independent survey.

Where the town sits

Al-Mazroub is in the north-west of North Kordofan, about 90 kilometres, or 56 miles, west of Bara. Kordofan is three states: North, West and South. It is the belt where the army's central zone meets RSF control in Darfur. Fighting there has been heavy since late 2025, and the war itself is in its fourth year, counting from the April 2023 break between the army and the paramilitary force that had shared the capital.

The army's recent list in this state is short and specific. On 26 September it said it had taken Um Sharo. The day before that it said it had taken Sodari and inflicted heavy losses. Al-Mazroub is the third named place in that westward sequence. If the videos and the emergency-room statement hold, the line of advance is Bara, then Sodari and Um Sharo, then al-Mazroub, with West Kordofan as the next state rather than a town already claimed.

What a supply cut would mean

Deidan's phrase, cutting supply lines, is a claim about roads, not about a signed capitulation. The RSF has not issued a matching statement in the wire reports of Friday's announcement. An unverified retreat and a confirmed loss of the town are different facts. What exists on paper is the army's statement, Deidan's interview, the emergency room's note, and the videos. What does not exist is an RSF casualty figure both sides accept, or a date for a push into West Kordofan.

The army told civilians in "liberated areas" to return to ordinary life. That sentence is in the military statement. It does not say how many people left al-Mazroub, or whether the road Hamed described is open to traders or only to troops. El Obeid, the state capital, remains the larger prize in North Kordofan and was not part of Friday's claim. A separate RSF drone strike on the University of Kordofan in El Obeid has been reported with a death toll of 10. That attack is a different incident from the fight for al-Mazroub, and the army did not fold the two together.

The map change, if it sticks, is a town 90 kilometres west of Bara in army hands, on the seam with West Kordofan, described by the army's own spokesman as the RSF's main local base. The next report that would confirm it is not another video. It is whether traffic moves on that road under one flag for more than a day.