Nukes, drones and aircraft carriers - inside Iran's military buildup
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We will measure our success not only by the battles we win, but also by the wars we end. Right now, all eyes are on Washington. But who's actually watching Europe?

At the moment, Zelensky wants to make a deal. I don't know if Putin does. He might not. I don't know. Israel and Hamas have finally agreed to a ceasefire deal after months of delicate negotiations. I'm Venetia Rainey, and this is Battle Lines. It's Monday, 10th of March, 2025.

On today's episode, we'll be covering Iran's latest military drills, including some with Russia and China, and what they tell us about the country's attempts to build new weapons with new capabilities. We'll also be looking at the renewed attempts to strike an Iran nuclear deal, and why Donald Trump's threatening letter to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei might backfire. Plus, we'll take a trip to a rare safe haven in Sudan, where our reporters have been hearing first-hand stories of the atrocities being carried out by the rapid support forces.

But first, before we go any further, do you enjoy this podcast? If so, we'd love you to leave a rating and a review on whatever platform you're listening to this on right now. It lets us know what you want to hear more of and helps other people find us. Thanks in advance.

I also wanted to let you know about a new investigative series released on our sister podcast, The Daily Tee, over the weekend. It's called The Tech Boss Who Was Russia's Secret Spy. And it's all about Jan Marsalek, a top executive at Wirecard before it collapsed amid a fraud scandal in Germany.

But the story goes much deeper than that. From a Bulgarian spy ring here in the UK to the Wagner Group in Libya, the three-part series is a gripping deep dive into a murky world of espionage, Kremlin plots and political influence. You can find it on the Daily T feed wherever you get your podcasts, and I think it will be right up your street. OK, on with our episode. Today saw warships from Iran, China and Russia sail together in the Gulf of Oman as part of their annual joint exercises.

The show of strength and military ties comes on the back of several months of other military exercises by Tehran that has seen the Islamic Republic show off upgraded kit, including a brand new aircraft carrier. These sorts of drills are normally shrouded in secrecy, but not this time. Meanwhile, there are fresh attempts to draw Tehran into a nuclear deal. Donald Trump said last week that he wrote a letter to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. This is him talking about it on Fox News. I've written him a letter.

saying, "I hope you're going to negotiate because if we have to go in militarily, it's going to be a terrible thing for them." You wrote a letter to the Khomeini? Yes. When did you send the letter? Yesterday. And you said, "You better negotiate or we want you to negotiate." No, I didn't say, "You better." I said, "I hope you're going to negotiate because it's going to be a lot better for Iran." And I think they want to get that letter.

The other alternative is we have to do something because you can't let them have a nuclear weapon. I'm joined now in the studio by Akhtar McCoy, a foreign reporter for The Telegraph. Akhtar, welcome to Battlelines. Let's start with that letter from Trump. How has that been received in Tehran? They are just denying receiving any sort of letter from the Trump administration. The Iran Supreme Leader yesterday, he said, the Islamic Republic of Iran will certainly not accept

their expectations. He technically is ruling out any sorts of negotiations with the Trump administration. Even any sort of any talking or negotiation with the Americans at this moment seems very unlikely in Iran. Now the hardliners are more in dominance. They are increasingly opposed to any sorts of negotiations with the United States. And they are saying, OK, if you trust Americans, that's what will happen to you, what happened to Vladimir Zelenskyy.

The moderates, like last week, Vice President Jawad Zarif was sort of forced to resign. He was like one of the, in the West, everyone calls him a moderate. So he was forced to resign by the head of the judiciary, very unprecedented thing. And now we talked with some Iranian officials last week, and then they said now it's just impossible to talk. But we may be surprised because it has happened before.

On a stage in public, Iranian official would be saying, no, we are not talking with Americans. They're bullying us. But in back stage, like somewhere in Qatar or Oman, they will be secretly talking with Americans. Yeah, you mentioned that bullying. Ali Khamenei referred to some bully governments, which we have to assume is a reference to Trump. And as you say, I'm in the wake of the Zelensky debacle. It's interesting because Iran does seem to be having talks with France and Germany, right, about some kind of nuclear deal.

Because France and Germany are still parties of that joint comprehensive plan of action, the nuclear deal that was signed between Western powers, world powers and Iran in 2015. Since then, the United States withdrew, Trump withdrew from that deal in 2018, in its first term, and started his policy of maximum pressure on Iran.

But the European allies are still part of that agreement. Iran and Western, at least in Europe, they are trying to revive that deal, which would mean like Iran would stop enriching uranium in a level that would be used to make a nuclear bomb and the West, European countries would just lift their sanctions.

And there is a big deadline that comes to revive that deal. October 2025 is a big date for Iran because if they cannot reach any deal to revive that agreement, then this snapback action of the United Nations Security Council would be in effect. And then all of those sanctions which were left under the JCPOA will be restored automatically if they don't reach any agreement by October 2025.

You also reported a slight twist to this story, the involvement of Vladimir Putin. Can you tell us about that? Yeah, Vladimir Putin, we were told by Iranian officials, Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, has sent a letter to the Islamic Republic Supreme National Security Council saying he is ready to mediate between Trump and Iran to reach to a sort of deal so it doesn't end up in a war. No Iranian official wants to deny or reject any offer that comes from Vladimir Putin.

But now it's a very critical situation for them. It's mostly for, if you look at it like in terms of domestic propaganda, they don't want to say, "Okay, we talk with Americans and just Putin mediated." They would like the regime supporters, hardliners would consider it as a humiliation, as I said, especially after what happened between Zelensky and Trump.

How much has Iran's nuclear stockpile increased since Trump pulled out of this Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the JCPOA, back in 2018? I've seen some U.S. officials estimate that Iran could produce a nuclear weapon within weeks if it chose to do so. How true is that?

Iran is increasing stockpiling highly enriched uranium since 2018, since Trump withdrew from the deal. And the International Atomic Energy Agency also reported a couple of weeks ago that Iran has now the capacity to make six nuclear bombs with the current enriched uranium they have. The IAEA said in a report that Iran now has around 275 kilograms of 60 percent highly enriched uranium.

And that was by February 8th, by last month. So we don't know what has happened since then. And that's a 50% jump in 15 weeks. So if they keep going with the current rates of enriching uranium,

the possibility of making more bombs would be more highly. But on making a bomb, there is a fatwa on Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei as issued a fatwa, like a religious order in the 90s that's prohibiting Iranian officials from nuclear bomb. We also reported that he is now under pressure from the IRGC Islamic Revolutionary Guard groups to revoke his fatwa because now

They are feeling an existential threat. We were told by the Iranian officials that there are only two options for the regime to survive at the moment. They should either talk with the Americans or go nuclear. Both of them are forbidden by the Supreme Leader. So it's a critical situation, especially what has happened in the Middle East over the past year. That's clearly just one aspect of Iranian defence that we've seen being built up over the years. I want to also ask you about these military drills that we've seen in January and February. They're

They're not that unusual in themselves. But what was unusual is that normally they're very secretive, but instead they received quite a lot of coverage. I just want to start by asking you, why do you think that is? It's to show power to the United States. On paper, now it's Iran's turn to retaliate for Israeli strikes, which just started last year. They had it for four times. And on paper, it's now Iran's turn to retaliate against Israeli threats. But since Trump returned to office, now Israelis and Americans are threatening to strike.

And Iranians are trying to show by these military exercises and force, they want to show their new equipment, their new military capabilities to say, "Okay, if you attack, we have this to defend."

So what stuck out to you in terms of new military capabilities or new kit? Over the past couple of months, there are two more important things that Iran unveiled. One is this drone carrier in the Persian Gulf. So now they can easily fly those suicidal or any sort of drones from the Persian Gulf to anywhere in the Middle East. That's the Shahed Baghri, is that right? Yeah.

And last week they also unveiled a new drone which they say is for surveillance and bombings. And it's first in the Islamic Republic history that a drone is powered by engine of a jet. So it's jet-powered drone.

On paper, in report, on the state TV, they say, OK, it flies and it can return. But we never know if that day comes when there is something happening between the two countries or Israel or whatever. If that drone flies to this destination, if it will return back. Iran is using Shahid drone to do this sort of suicide, like just go and hit somewhere. So we don't know if this new drone, JAWS 313, is more sophisticated than the Shahid one.

How much of this is being produced within Iran and how much is technology that they're getting from Russia, China, for example? So most of these drones are manufactured inside Iran, but the technology sometimes in some cases comes from mainland China and Hong Kong.

Last week, the U.S. imposed sanctions on entities in Hong Kong and Chinese mainland where they were accused of facilitating Tehran's accusations of parts of drones program. So the U.S. is imposing these sanctions on wherever these companies are providing technology for the Iranian drone missile program. But so far, apparently those sanctions were not very much effectful and they are still making new, like the previous drones and unveiling new drones. And then just finally, these...

military drills that we've seen launched today with Russia and China. Obviously, it's an annual affair. This is the fifth annual version of these drills. Why is it particularly significant this year? Significant this year because Iran is in its weakest position since the Islamic Republic establishments in 1979.

It has lost lots of its allies in Syria, in Lebanon, in Gaza. They never looked at their proxy groups to come and defend them, but they always looked at China and Russia to come and defend. Now with the threats rising every day that Americans are going to attack or Israelis are going to attack, this sense of urgency is more, like it's increasing a lot. So they want to show, okay, we are friends with Russia, we are friends with China, and if you attack us, we have friends to defend us.

But trust to Vladimir Putin is not very much inside Iran, mainly because he has delayed the delivery of S-400 air defense missile system, which is very crucial for Iran to defend itself from missiles of United States or Israel. But Putin is holding them. So he doesn't have a very much trust base inside the regime, but still they need him, mostly for propaganda to see if something happens, Russia, China are defending it.

Fascinating. Akhtar McCoy, Telegraph foreign reporter. Thanks for joining us on Battle Lines. After the break, we'll be taking a trip to Sudan to hear some shocking stories from the ongoing war there.

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Hey, folks, it's Mark Maron here, host of WTF with Mark Maron on ACAST. I've been doing this show a long time, more than 15 years. Research shows that 74% of listeners recall the brands they hear when listening to podcasts. So if you're a business owner or marketer and you want your business to be top of mind,

Podcast advertising with ACAST is the way to go. Run podcast ads with ACAST by visiting go.acast.com slash MARC. Welcome back. Now, the war in Sudan may not be making the front pages, but it is still ongoing and remains arguably the most brutal and devastating conflict in the world today. We've covered it repeatedly here on Battlelines and will continue to do so.

My colleagues Lilia Sebouai and Simon Townsley recently went to Nuba in southern Sudan to speak to people about what they'd witnessed. The stories they heard are truly shocking and a heads up, they include a graphic account of sexual violence against a child. Lilia and Simon spoke about what they saw and heard to my co-host Roland Oliphant. Over to Roland.

The war in Sudan has been raging now for a year and 10 months. In that time, about 150,000 people have been killed. 12 million people have fled their homes in what the United Nations has called the world's worst humanitarian crisis. In January, the United States accused the rapid support forces one side of the war of genocide.

But it is hunger that experts say is now poised to take the greatest toll, with 638,000 people at imminent risk of starvation. The Telegraph's global health reporter Lilia Sebuai and photographer Simon Townsley recently returned from Sudan's Nuba Mountains.

where they gained rare access to the country. Could you just give us a bit of context? So Sudan is a big place. Where are the Nuba Mountains? What are they? What makes them different to other parts of Sudan? So the Nuba Mountains is at the southernmost part of Sudan. So when South Sudan split in 2011, Nuba Mountains is on the fault line and it's an extremely mountainous region. There's 4 million people living there and it's kind of called a safe haven. That's what people call it.

refer to it as because it's the most secure place in Sudan because it's got such a difficult terrain and landscape. There isn't as much fighting, but that is increasing more now. And it's also ruled by an indigenous rebel group.

So rather than Sudanese Armed Forces or RSF, the SBLMN control this region. What does that stand for? So SBLMN is Sudanese People's Liberation Movement North, and it used to be joined with South Sudan before they seceded in 2011, but now it's an indigenous rebel group. They're calling for a united Sudan, so they're made up of indigenous African tribes rather than RSF and Sudan forces that are predominantly Arabs or originating from Arabs. Tell us...

what you found when you got there

The Nuba Mountains is a massive, massive area. The famine was officially declared in the western Nuba Mountains. And so when we arrived in Calder, which is kind of the main centre where the market is, it took us three or four days to drive there. There's no roads in Nuba, so it's really difficult to get around. So that's where we were travelling to. And then when we did eventually get there, we wanted to go to the worst affected camps so that we could see the people in the most need. And then that took us to Hajar Jawad Camp,

where around 2,800 people were living. Tell us, what does it look like, this place, Simon? The Juba Mountains, before we went, we had to consult various security people in order to, you know, make sure that we were travelling safely. And all of the people we spoke to said how beautiful they were. And in fact, they are. I mean, it is...

It's very mountainous. It's quite dry even at this time of the year. And these extraordinary rock formations sort of leap up out of the landscape. They're not particularly high mountains, but they are really spectacular with people sort of nestled on the edges of them and in small huts. And sometimes in really precarious circumstances with sort of enormous boulders teetering above.

above their homes. And I think that's one of the reasons this area is independent to the extent that it is. You know, they're able to withstand SAF and the RSF because it's very difficult land to fight through.

So you're driving through this incredible landscape. What do you find when you get there, when you get to this epicenter of this food crisis? Tell us what you saw and who you spoke to. So also the thing with when the famine is declared is when they declare it, it's a projection period. So it's from December to May. And it says in that period, a famine is going to occur. And the worst hunger part is around March time.

all the harvest from December is going to run out, the seasonal rains are going to come and make everything awful. So what we saw is people really on the brink and they were just about clinging on to like the last grains of the harvest and things. But basically, so when we went into this camp, there's just rows and rows of straw huts, but we'd already visited a few camps at this point and they were quite noisy, there's kids running around. But this one did feel different because it was eerily quiet and also there was

basically no men there because lots of people have been displaced from nearby towns that are Sudanese armed forces controlled,

which they call SAF or RSF control so lots of the men have been killed so it's just women and children there but lots of the women are then forced to be the only providers for their families so lots of them weren't there either because they were in the bush collecting leaves because that's literally what they eat and they get the leaves they boil them mush them into a paste and then share that with their kids or they get these berries called nabak berries and they have to wait till they're dried out and then they eat that so it was eerily quiet it was quite empty and no kids were running around they were just they

they were sat there in like pockets of shade with the flies over their face, like not even batting them off. People just seemed really drained and... Just still. Yeah, still. Just saving energy. It was really evident, yeah. I was expecting this sort of grand scale of suffering, you know, the way perhaps previous hunger crises have been photographed. But in fact...

Because there is almost no NGO activity in there in terms of food delivery, the people who are registered at these refugee camps can be in the tens of thousands, but they're not there because there's no reason to hang around waiting for food that's not coming. So they register at the camps.

So a camp might have a registration of sort of 17,000 people. But when you arrive, you don't see them because they've all gone off into the host community to try and perhaps earn a little bit of money, pick a little bit of food. They don't want to stay in the camps themselves. There's nothing for them. And they're often very far from water. I mean, it's not unusual to walk two, three hours each day or two hours even in one direction to get water and bring it back.

I mean, it sounds absolutely catastrophic. What's causing this famine? Is this a product of the war? And if so, how? Or is it linked to climate as well? It's definitely a product of the war, like man-made. Because the Nuba Mountains have been kind of sporadically fighting the government since 1983. And...

There's a real deep-rooted battle there and the Sudanese armed forces are basically arbitrarily denying aid from getting there. And also this camp that we just described, five days before we got there, the Sudanese armed forces had actually come and looted it and they'd burnt down reams of these straw huts which can take them a week to make these huts and that's the only thing they own.

and they'd come and looted the stores, stolen bags of corn, all their reserves that are meant to get them through these rainy months, even nutrition supplies for children and pregnant mums. So that was just a clear evidence of how it's man-made.

Tell me about who you spoke to. Who did you meet and what did they say? The people that we spoke to in that camp, everyone said, please just tell the world what's happening to us. But also a thing that I found really moving when we were there was no one was really asking for things. They would tell us these traumatic stories about how they'd been displaced, how they watched their husband be murdered when they ran away with their kids. They haven't eaten for days. But then they'd say, thanks so much for even asking because no one cares about us.

And that was like an overwhelming thing that everyone was saying because no journalists ever go there. It's never reported about. They've been through a massive war themselves like 10 years ago. And if you ask them what do they hope for, they look at you as if, you know, ask them whether they'd like to go to the moon. They say, well, we don't have any hope for anything. I mean, we're just, you know, they're clearly just getting by. They don't have...

anything beyond tomorrow or even the afternoon. Since Trump's executive order now cancelling USAID and this NGO that we went in with, we're instrumental in organising the rigorous famine declaration basically. You have to rigorously go into the communities and gather all this information. And he said we're basically blind on the ground now. We have no idea what's happening because we can't

pay our staff to go and gather this information. So the rains are coming in two months, it's going to be basically cut off and they're just going to have no access and no means of recording what's going on there and it's the worst famine in the world. How many people are going to die? Well there's 638,000 in the famine zone and that means all of them are at risk and if all the roads are cut off, all the rains, no access to food, lots of their stores have been looted, they're all at imminent risk of dying.

The other story that you filed is about war crimes, particularly the crime of rape in war. It's an extraordinary but very graphic and very shocking bit of reporting. Could you just recap that? Tell us about this particular scene, this particular...

that you report on and confirm? So we basically stumbled across a camp. We're not going to share the name or area to protect their identity, but we were basically trying to speak to women about who had potentially been raped and attacked by, it's mainly RSF soldiers that had been accused of mass raping and genocide in the war. So we were in a camp speaking to these women, and one woman came forward and said, I wasn't raped, but I witnessed a rape.

So then we were speaking to her about her story and she said that she witnessed her sister and her child being raped by RSF soldiers. And then we said,

what was the child's name, kind of presuming it was a girl, and she said a boy's name. And we were all even more shocked. And she took us to their home and we met them. And the young boy who we saw is a severely disabled child, we all just gasped when we saw him. It was absolutely shocking. And then we sat down with the mum and spoke to the mum and she told us in vivid detail what happened to her

The RSF basically arrived at the village where she was staying with her seven children, her sister. They hear them all coming. People are terrified of the RSF. They know what that means. They're just known to go on these mass raping attacks. Women in Sudan sometimes sign suicide pacts when they hear them coming just because they're that terrified. The woman hears them coming. She gets six of her seven children, piles them into the car.

and then the RSF soldiers close in, they drag her out of the front seat and drag her into like a nearby clearing and there's 14 other women there so there's 15 in total.

They tell them to strip off their clothes and then they start gang raping them. And she said they were in packs of two and three spread around. And they told them, lie down on their front and look at the floor. And if you dare talk, we'll beat you and hit you. And they were beating them with the butts of their guns. So they're all just crying into the dirt, unable to do anything. And then she's nearby her car where her children are. And her four-year-old son gets off when he sees his mum being attacked. And an RSF soldier picks up the four-year-old boy

and throws him into the middle of the clearing where all these other women are being gang raped and then he's then gang raped. It's an unbelievably horrific graphic account. When we came across this story, we were working with a translator, a man, and when the woman came forward and said, "Yes, my nephew was raped," the translator shouted, "No, that can't be. Your nephew's a boy."

He couldn't have been raped. And he was really so shocked that he shouted and slightly scared the boy's aunt. And then after she left, the translator broke down. You know, he just put his head in his hands and he couldn't understand how that could happen at all. It is truly a shocking, shocking war where, you know, four-year-old disabled children are raped. I mean, I haven't heard of that.

How did they know it was the RSF? People know it's the RSF because they have these brown uniforms and they have these turbans around their head. And they're also screaming about being Arabs and we'll kill you Nuba. It's all very, you're an indigenous tribe, we want to wipe you out. Because that's what I asked her and I think it's the distinctive uniform and clothing. They were convinced this was RSF, not SAF? No, because different uniform and army. And they behave quite differently. Yeah. How widespread...

do we think this is? It's incredibly widespread. It's basically happening and every time there's an attack in Sudan, women are being mass raped and that's been widely recorded by the UN as well. Is this something committed by both sides? Is it considered? Yeah, it is being committed by both sides but it

It's more RSF. There's been a few recorded instances of SAF. We don't know how wide scale that actually is, but it's definitely more RSF that are using it as like a weapon of mass destruction. So there's been more documented cases. It seems to be something that the RSF do, would you say, almost as a military tactic? Yeah, completely. It's like ethnic cleansing of indigenous African tribes. I spoke to someone from Human Rights Watch who went to Nuba in October, and she said in 15 years of...

working on war and women in war. She's never seen rape at this scale before. And also because she went to Nuba, the thing there is there's no telecommunications, so there's no form of contact. And also it's a very conservative patriarchal society. So even when we were speaking to these women, obviously it's traumatic for anyone to recount a story like this, but it's particularly difficult for them because no one talks about that kind of thing. So it's massively underreported. With the boy who was raped...

I asked them, you know, well, you know, has he reported it? Well, obviously they said no. What would be the point of reporting it and to who? And then I said, well, does anybody else know? Yes, she said, all the other children know and the family knows. Everybody except her husband. So his father doesn't know. And that's all part of that stigma that the men can't know that. They can't deal with that. Why not? It won't be.

Well, it's a very male-oriented society where the men have to be tough and strong and the humiliation of your child or your wife being raped is, I think that's part of the reason that it's being done, is to control the male fighters. And also it would be very difficult for her to even utter those words to her husband. Yeah.

Simon, how do you photograph something like that? Can you even photograph people who have been through that? You can do. I've photographed a lot of women who have been assaulted and raped in conflicts over the years in Ukraine, in the DRC. It's going on now in Gomuino. And it's really about giving the women the opportunity to

to tell their story and in some cases they say no. So I always say to them, you don't of course have to be photographed at all. You may not wish to be or if you would let me photograph you, we can do it anonymously. So I photograph a detail, perhaps your hands or photograph you from the back. And in some cases, the women will say, no, I want to stand up and I want to speak out. I want to be identified. I'm not fearful of that. It's got to stop. In this case, we are dealing with a small boy and

I did photograph him in a way that he couldn't have been identified, but we chose in the end not to run that photograph with the article. You know, it's really difficult. You have to weigh up the desire that people have to tell their story and the right that they have to tell their story and to show what has happened to them and who they are, their identity, with their vulnerabilities and the possibility of something happening to them as a result of

of them inadvertently perhaps being identified or someone coming across them even if they've agreed to be identified. So it's quite a difficult balancing act and you have to just take it very slowly. Is there any kind of provision or support for these women or these children in this case?

No, basically. Also, a thing in this war is it's like 70% of the health infrastructure has been completely decimated. So like we said, there's no one for them to report it to. There's no help of aftercare. All these people were bleeding after the attack happened.

When you say no health infrastructure, that means no hospitals, no clinics. And also even in Nuba, because it's so difficult to get around, no one has cars or anything. People walk for days on end to get from areas and it's dangerous. There's only two hospitals for the four million population there. And they're in Calder, in the centre, and where we were in the famine zone, took us five days of driving in a sturdy vehicle to get there. You're talking about a catastrophe...

with basically no international relief presence from what you're saying. No. It's astonishing. Look, what we saw is nothing compared to what's going to come in a few months' time because the IDPs, they're on the move. They're not planting, so there will be no harvest. So they will have no food in three months. That's it. And there are really limited shipments coming in. We witnessed desperate airdrops.

The planes aren't even allowed to land. They have to throw the sacks out the back of the aircraft. And at least half of them burst on impact. This is a United Nations airdrop? We can't mention the name of the NGO because it's not official. But it's not UN. No, it's not a UN agency. And that's it? That is the international aid that's going in? That's it. Just some planes dropping some sacks of grain? Yeah. Right. I'm a little bit lost for words. We're kind of accustomed to...

I'm thinking back to things like the famous famine in Ethiopia in the early 1980s, which caused international consternation and band-aid and all of this. I think it's a hackneyed phrase we often use in journalism, but we often talk about the forgotten crisis, the forgotten war, the forgotten famine. This really does sound like it has been completely overlooked. Yeah, it's not even forgotten, it's just overlooked. Yeah.

It's not like we knew about it and then put it to the back of our minds. And also the Sudan war is overlooked anyway, but this is like a periphery within the Sudan war that's already being overlooked. Like it's Nuba Mountains. It's a rebel controlled area within Sudan.

There's no UN presence there, there's no camps, there's no aid getting in. They won't go in, no UN agency, and most of the big international NGOs won't go anywhere without a sovereign government saying it's okay. So even though SAF don't control that area...

Nobody's going to go in there. Sudanese armed forces. Yeah, Sudanese government, Sudanese armed forces. They won't go in without the Sudanese government saying it's okay, and they won't. So they're waiting for the government's okay, but they're also the people that are looting these aid stores and killing people. So what's the military situation there? Are they controlling a front line against both sides? Where's the frontier here? So SPLMN control the whole area, and then there's the western Nuba Mountains, which is where the famine is declared. There's four counties there, and...

In Dilling County, they control Dilling County, but Dilling Town is SAF controlled. And then in Habila County, that's also SVLMN controlled, but Habila Town is controlled by the RSF. So they're the only two places. And then there's also Kalingi that is...

kind of a front line but they are closing in and skirmishes are increasing. Who's closing in? RSF and SAF because they're both just closing in on the lines basically from both sides. Right. And then the skirmishes over certain towns and areas for SPLMN are pushing them back. They are fighting both sides. Yeah. And...

Are civilians able to move between areas across the front line? Yeah, women and children, but men are all killed because they don't want them to join the SPLMN forces. And also, SPLMN, they wouldn't tell me how many people were in their army. They said, it's far too confidential, we can't tell you that. But they said that people only join when they're about in their 40s. They're not letting 18-year-olds join, they have to be older.

What was your impression of their military capability then, if they are essentially another faction in this war? I saw three or four very ancient Soviet tanks rusting around and one technical Land Cruiser chopped down with 50mm cannon on the back of it. That's it. That's all we saw in the way of the military in five, six days.

And also apparently a lot of the arms and equipment they get is from skirmishes with RSF and SAF so when things are dropped and left then that's what they get. It's not like they're being funded by anyone. SAF and RSF are being funded by the UAE or the regional powers. SBLMN aren't being funded at all. So they have this great grand idea but whether it's going to be a reality and they could actually be independent one day is uncertain really. The trouble is it's this perfect storm, right? It's totally landlocked. On one side you've got

the Sudanese armed forces who were trying to wipe them out in 2011 they were bombing them to try and drive them out so they're not friends with them and the RSF on the other hand are just murderous bandits who are sweeping in and taking what they can when they can

And the sad part of it, at the end we were talking to one of the doctors, Sudanese doctors, and he said, you know, once they stop fighting each other, then they're going to start fighting us again. So at the moment, nobody's won and they're too busy, RSF and SAF, beating up and trying to win. But yeah, when it's calmed down again, they're back to square one.

Generally, people who read this from a distance have been thinking the RSF, they're aligned with the Janjaweed or they came out of the Janjaweed. They're a bunch of murderous bandits. They're the bad guys. The Sudanese armed forces, that's the government, legitimate. They're the good guys. Our experience in the Newber Mountains is there are no good guys. There are no good guys. Well, Liliya Sebuah, Simon Townsley, thank you very much for joining us on Battle Lines. Thank you. Thanks.

That's all for today's episode of Battlelines. We'll be back again on Friday with another Trump edition. Until then, goodbye. Battlelines is an original podcast from The Telegraph created by David Knowles. If you appreciated this podcast, please consider following Battlelines on your preferred podcast app. And if you have a moment, leave us a review as it helps others find the show.

To stay on top of all of our news, subscribe to The Telegraph, sign up to our Dispatches newsletter, or listen to our sister podcast, Ukraine The Latest. You can also get in touch directly by emailing battlelines at telegraph.co.uk or contact us on X. You can find our handles in the show notes. Battlelines is produced by Yolaine Goffin and the executive producer is Louisa Wells.

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