When Sudan's military leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan welcomed Al-Nour Ahmed Adam — also known as Al-Nour Al-Qubba and a former senior commander of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia — into the ranks of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) earlier this year, it was one of the most high-profile defections in the Sudanese civil war to date. While the SAF controls the capital Khartoum, Port Sudan and large parts of the east and center of the country, its rival RSF holds vast areas in the west of the