Emadeddin Badi
The war in Sudan has transformed far more than its own frontlines. It has reshaped the security economies of its neighbours, activating new supply nodes and embedding weapons and combatants into cross-border markets that now function as self-reinforcing “collateral circuits.”
As seized stockpiles from the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) entered circulation – alongside new external transfers moving into Sudan – these circuits fused manpower mobilization, convoy protection, fuel, communications technology and arms distribution. In doing so, they rewired the conflict economies of Chad and Libya.
As the report shows, Sudan’s descent into civil war accelerated the spread of weapons and spurred the mobilization of mercenaries. Far from being peripheral, mercenary leaders coordinated convoys, negotiated access, escorted shipments and kept arms flowing despite shifting frontlines. In effect, they built and managed the logistical networks that sustained the war, creating two interlinked circuits – of mercenaries and of weapons – that reinforced one another and gathered their own momentum.
The analysis traces how pre-war networks in Libya and Chad were revived and repurposed once the Sudanese conflict erupted in April 2023. In southern Libya, units aligned with the Libyan Arab Armed Forces (LAAF), including formations in Sebha, Kufra, Murzuq and Qatrun, adapted to new demand by securing infrastructure, escorting flows and managing access to desert corridors. In northern Chad, rebel remnants and ex-combatants embedded in goldfields and border regions operated as brokers, escorts and intermediaries, grounding arms circulation in commercial and kinship-based arrangements.
As fighting intensified, supply routes evolved. Initial RSF resupply through Kufra was disrupted by the loss of the Chevrolet base, forcing convoys onto harsher desert tracks and constraining high-volume deliveries. From mid-2023 onward, Amdjarass emerged as both a logistical and political pivot. Cargo flights disguised as humanitarian assistance, convoy marshalling and coordination with local stakeholders transformed the town into the backbone of RSF resupply into Darfur. Mercenary mobilization followed this realignment, with Chadian fighters and rebel splinters entering transactional relationships that linked eastern Chad to RSF positions.
By 2024, mounting pressure from SAF-aligned factions along the eastern Chadian routes pushed operations back toward Libya. The refurbishment of Ma’aten al-Sarah – a previously disused airbase near the tri-border zone – turned it into the epicentre of a new corridor linking Chad to southeastern Libya. From this hub, weapons and vehicles were aggregated, stockpiled and pushed directly into Darfur, creating a revitalized supply route designed to bypass interdictions and sustain the flow of materiel to the RSF.
The study also traces outbound proliferation. Weapons moved through Chad and Libya via diversion, resale and spillovers shaped by brokerage networks, local tensions, price signals and the involvement of mercenary and auxiliary forces. These flows deepened a regionalized economy of insecurity in which arms markets and armed labour sustain each other.
The report’s forward-looking assessment highlights four principal risks: the durability of collateral circuits, the regionalization of instability, escalation from localized disputes and the politicization of logistical hubs. Recommendations include integrating mercenary dynamics into disarmament planning, draining surplus weapons, targeting brokerage networks and embedding arms management into any future Sudanese political settlement.
Executive summary
The war in Sudan has not only reshaped its own frontlines but also transformed the wider security economies of its neighbours. The proliferation of arms and the growing reliance on mercenaries are reshaping the security architecture of the Sahel and Sahara region, not as residual effects of war, but as persistent forces that rewire conflict economies and deepen structural fragility.
Mercenary groups – often composed of rebel remnants or newly recruited fighters contracted as quasi-state auxiliary forces – now move fluidly between ideologically motivated conflict, organized crime and contract-based warfare.
At the same time, the circulation of weapons has become increasingly regionalized, opportunistic and commercially oriented. In weakly governed borderlands, the market for mercenary labour and the market for weapons interact to entrench a regionalized economy of insecurity.
When they intersect, they create self-reinforcing circuits: networks in which weapons, fighters, fuel and communications technology move together. Weapons incentivize the mobilization of armed labour, and mercenaries, in turn, move to secure, transport or profit from weapons.
It is the way each market sustains and depends on the other that defines them as ‘collateral circuits’, secondary but interlocking systems that derive momentum from one another. The markets for weapons and mercenary labour generated by the Sudan conflict have become collateral circuits – logistical systems in which arms and combatants circulate together.
Few events have accelerated this process as dramatically as the war in Sudan, which erupted in April 2023, triggering both inbound and outbound flows of arms. The collapse of internal military control and the fragmentation of command structures enabled a rapid proliferation of arms outflows from both the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese Armed Forces’ (SAF) stockpiles in Sudan into regional markets.
At the same time, significant transfers into Sudan by external state and non-state actors created new inflows, some of which have already been diverted back out. Mercenary leaders have organized convoys, provided escort services, and negotiated access at checkpoints, binding manpower mobilization and weapons transfers into a single system.
These dynamics clearly reflect the four proliferation pathways identified by the United Nations Working Group on the Use of Mercenaries (UNWG-M) its 2024 report: state-enabled supply, diversion of state stockpiles, opaque brokering networks and illicit exchanges involving mercenary and auxiliary forces.
Sudan’s war has activated all four, embedding them in cross-border markets that extend to the broader Sahel. The destabilizing effects of this have radiated beyond Sudan itself. Neighbouring Chad and Libya have been drawn into the churn, emerging as zones of weapons proliferation, mercenary recruitment and logistical facilitation.
The Sudan conflict has activated new supply nodes, expanded and reshaped trafficking infrastructures, embedded Sudanese-linked materiel into arms markets and created fresh incentives for cross-border mercenary mobilization. These patterns have illustrated in real time how the UNWG-M’s proliferation pathways materialize in fragile borderlands, undermining disarmament efforts and complicating conflict resolution.4 Mercenaries have been central to every phase of the war and to the functioning of its different supply pipelines.
They do not operate on the margins of trafficking but act as organizers and enablers of the circuits: escorting convoys, managing access and keeping flows moving across borders. Their involvement has ensured that arms continue to circulate, even when frontline demand shifts, making them integral to both the operationalization of resupply and the wider patterns of proliferation.
Beyond arms, mercenary actors also intersect with other illicit economies, particularly gold, raising the risk that their influence will persist even if the intensity of the war in Sudan declines. This reinforces the durability of collateral circuits and their deep integration into conflict economies across the region.
This report focuses on northern Chad and southern Libya because their internal dynamics – post-ceasefire realignment in Libya and post-Doha fragmentation in Chad – have made them especially susceptible to these pressures. It traces how regional arms markets and mercenary networks have evolved in tandem, highlighting key actors, shifting routes and the ways Sudan-linked inflows have altered the circulation of weapons and labour.
The analysis proceeds in three parts. First, it traces key contextual developments in Libya and Chad in the lead-up to Sudan’s war. Second, it examines how weapons have flowed into Sudan by way of state-enabled supply chains. And third, it assesses how weapons are proliferating back out into Chad and Libya, reshaping markets, pricing structures and security dynamics.
A dedicated sub-section also considers the role of mercenaries as vectors of proliferation, drawing on the framework of the UNWG-M. The report concludes with a forward-looking assessment of what these dynamics could mean for the region once Sudan’s conflict becomes less acute and offers recommendations for mitigating the twin risks of arms outflows and mercenary mobilization.
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Emadeddin Badi – Senior Fellow, Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime.
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