The administration of outgoing United States President Joe Biden has imposed sanctions on the head of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, accusing him of destabilising the war-torn country.

In a statement on Thursday, the US Treasury Department said that, under al-Burhan’s leadership, the SAF has “committed lethal attacks on civilians, including airstrikes against protected infrastructure including schools, markets, and hospitals”.

“The SAF is also responsible for the routine and intentional denial of humanitarian access, using food deprivation as a war tactic,” it said.

The move comes just days after the Biden administration imposed sanctions on Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, the leader of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a Sudanese paramilitary group that has been locked in a war with the SAF since April 2023.

Under Dagalo’s leadership, “the RSF has engaged in serious human rights abuses, including widespread sexual violence and executing defenseless civilians and unarmed fighters”, the Treasury Department said on January 7.

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Washington also accused the RSF and its allied militias of committing genocide in western Sudan’s Darfur region.

The war in Sudan has killed thousands of people and pushed the country into a dire humanitarian crisis.

More than 8 million Sudanese have been internally displaced, while 3 million others have fled to neighbouring countries, according to United Nations figures.

A UN-backed group that monitors global hunger also warned late last month that famine was spreading rapidly across Sudan, with famine conditions confirmed in parts of Darfur, among other regions.

When asked about Thursday’s sanctions during a briefing in Washington, DC, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters that the Sudanese Armed Forces “continues to target civilians” in the country.

“It’s obstructed the advancement of a peace process. It’s refused to participate on numerous occasions in ceasefire talks that we’ve sought to convene,” Blinken said.

“And together with the RSF, it’s caused what is the world’s worst humanitarian crisis that people are suffering through every day.”

Blinken also voiced hope that the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump, who takes office on Monday, would keep trying to end the conflict.

“It is for me, yes, another real regret that when it comes to Sudan, we haven’t been able, on our watch, to get to that day of success,” he said.

Speaking earlier on Thursday, al-Burhan was defiant about the prospect that he might be targeted.

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“Any sanctions in service of the country, we would welcome them,” he told Al Jazeera Arabic.