and state actors such as the UAE. In this picture, Arab supremacism is not the driving force behind the RSF but only one factor in what makes them possible, with purely economic considerations also playing a major role.

Following the April 2019 revolution, the RSF has taken a hard line against Islamists. Hemedti claimed to have "exposed all the [Islamists'] schemes and the terrorists' plans and extremists' plans" following a crackdown in 2023. According to political professor and director of the Royal African Society Nicholas Westcott,