Military

Sudan Alliance Forces [SAF]

The Sudan Alliance Forces of ex-paratrooper Abdel Aziz Khalid, a northerner, have been growing in strength on Sudan's eastern border since the early 1990s. By the mid-1990s Abdul Aziz Khalid's SAF had probably about 300 men under the arms. SAF has played a major role in the opening of a new war front in the east since 1997, when together with the SPLA and smaller groups its forces began to pressure the strategically vital hydro-electric dam on the Blue Nile. It is regarded as politically progressive and secular.