Daily Bangla Times: Sudan’s warring factions are locked in a conflict that two weeks of fighting shows neither can easily win, raising the spectre of a drawn-out war betweenan agile paramilitary force and the better-equipped army that could destabilise a fragile region. Even with hundreds of people killed and the capital Khartoum turned into a war zone, there has been little sign of compromise between army commander Abdul-Fattah al-Burhan and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, head of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), commonly known as Hemedti. Foreign mediators have struggled to arrest the slide to war: a series of ceasefires brokered by the United States and others have been undermined by shelling and air strikes in Khartoum and conflict elsewhere, including the Darfur region in the west. Giving a faint flicker of a hope, UN Sudan special envoy Volker Perthes said yesterday he saw signs of more openness tonegotiations, but renewed fighting was heard in the capital. Hemedti and Burhan have both excluded the idea of negotiating with each other in public comments since the fighting began. An aide to Hemedti did not respond to questions from Reuters about whether he was ready to negotiate or hold peace talks. Hemedti on 20 April said he would not sit with Burhan, who he called a “criminal”. An aide to Burhan, asked the same questions, referred Reuters to Burhan's remarks to US based al-Hurra TV this week, where he said he cannot sit down with “the leader of the rebellion”, a reference to Hemedti. The stakes couldn’t be higher both for Sudan and seven neighouring states where stability may be jolted by conflict in a country with a history of civil strife, including the decades-long war that ended with southern secession in 2011. Despite its air force and tanks, the army has so far been unable to dislodge RSF fighters spread out through Khartoum, which has been spared violence in Sudan's past civil wars. It spells a drawn-out fight for the capital on the Nile,where the army said on Thursday RSF fighters were being defeated but a Western diplomat assessed the RSF to have the upper hand. Many civilians have fled the capital for safer areas. Residents have described a rapid breakdown as gangs and looters maraud in empty streets, neighbourhoods are rocked by airstrikes and shelling, and food and fuel run low. Even if the army can prevail in Khartoum, analysts worry the stage is being set for a return to the usual pattern of Sudan's internal wars - pitting the nation's military run by a powerful elite in the capital against those hailing from the regions angry at being marginalised, such as Darfur, the region where Hemedti and his RSF first emerged as a fighting force. A senior regional diplomat described the situation as “terrifying”. “We will have a lot of fragmentation,” the diplomat said, expressing concern about renewed conflict between the centre in Khartoum and peripheral regions in the country of 46 million. _Agencies