How Sudan's army is allowing Islamists to regain dominance in exchange for battlefield support

It has been a tumultuous journey for Sudan's Islamists since 2019, when the authoritarian regime of their patron Omar Al Bashir was removed from power in a popular uprising.

But those trying times, according to Sudanese analysts who spoke to The National, appear to have come to an end, with the Islamists now the single most dominant force in Sudan's complex political landscape.

Their alliance with the army in the two-year-old war against the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces now seems to have brought them back from the political wilderness.

Many of these militant Islamist groups operate under the name "The Islamist Movement" but in reality embrace a doctrine inspired almost entirely by the Muslim Brotherhood, which was recently banned in Jordan and is designated a terrorist group by several Arab states. That means war-torn Sudan could become their last refuge if they are allowed to return to power.

"The individuals who ruled Sudan during the days of Al Bashir are now the ones who dominate the scene," said prominent analyst Osman Al Mirghany.

"They are all inside Sudan, and their volunteer fighters are their most important political tool."

Experts believe it's an alliance dictated in large part by necessity, not conviction, and the Islamists and the army could very well be the opposing sides in a conflict likely to begin after the current war is over.

That war could start even earlier if the army decides to retake the reins, with Gen Abdel Fattah Al Burhan – the armed forces' chief and Sudan's de facto leader – deciding to tee up for a power grab, they explained.

"The best case scenario for the Islamists is to recreate conditions similar to the Al Bashir era. But that will mean the return of international economic sanctions, the erosion of their power base and the populace's loss of hope in change," said political analyst Mahmoud Said.

"That will trigger another popular uprising that could be more violent than the one that toppled Al Bashir in 2019," he warned. "Moreover, the possibility of a violent confrontation between the military and the Islamists is real since both are vying for power."

Disgraced and jailed

Already, radical Al Bashir loyalists, including clerics, have been claiming that Islamist militias, not the army, should take the credit for the string of battlefield gains against the RSF in recent months.

Those claims have drawn an angry response from Gen Al Burhan, whose critics accuse him of being a closet Islamist himself. He denies the charge, despite his growing alliances with Islamists.

Sudan has since 2019 seen Al Bashir disgraced and jailed, his top lieutenants imprisoned and their assets taken away as authorities of the new order went about dismantling the legacy of what had been one of the world's most enduring dictatorships.

It was not long before the Islamists received a reprieve from measures to limit their role, overseen by the transitional government of Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok.

A 2021 coup staged by Gen Al Burhan and his ally at the time, RSF commander Gen Mohamed Dagalo, ushered in the start of their comeback after months in which the pair harshly berated the government and its policies.

Ostensibly staged to spare the vast and ethnically and religiously diverse country a possible civil war and bring about political inclusion, the coup toppled Mr Hamdok's government and derailed the democratic transition protesters advocated during the bloody 2018-19 uprising.

The anti-Islamist moves pursued by Mr Hamdok's government was halted by the coup leaders, with droves of Al Bashir loyalists reinstated in key government jobs and sympathetic judges overturned rulings that froze the assets of businesses and organisations linked to Al Bashir's now-dissolved National Congress Party.

Al Bashir's feared security agencies were given back the wide powers they had during the dictator's 29-year rule but taken away after his fall; and hundreds of pro-democracy protesters were killed on the streets by security forces.

But tension was soon to surface between the two generals and it did not take long for it to turn into open conflict in April 2023. Many blame the Islamists for igniting the war, but there has been no concrete evidence to support that claim besides the assumption that a paramilitary force not run by Islamists would always be a major hurdle on the Islamists' path back to power.

Short of boots on the ground, run out of the capital by the RSF and embroiled in a bitter feud with liberal politicians, Gen Al Burhan turned to the Islamists for help; and they were happy to oblige, seeing the fight against the RSF as a way to increase their influence.

"The SAF (Sudanese armed forces) today is less a national army than a coalition of necessity," said US-based analyst Ezzat Khairi.

"They (the army and the Islamists) are united, not by a vision for Sudan, but by a common goal: to crush the idea of a democratic Sudan," he explained.

"Al Burhan, whether by design or drift, has aligned himself with the very forces the revolution tried to remove. And, yet, some still think the army will save Sudan."

Gen Al Burhan has denied he was in a direct alliance with the Islamists, arguing that the powerful volunteer brigades fighting on his side against the RSF were made up of men who left their ideologies at the door before joining the battle for Sudan's “salvation”.

But the analysts insist the alliance does in reality exist, with the notorious Al Bashir-era militias that were disbanded after the dictator's fall regrouped to fight on the side of the army.

"For 30 years, Al Bashir invested heavily in the armed forces to turn it into a political force to implement his programme," said Shawki Abdel Azeem, a pro-democracy politician.

"Joining the war allowed them to collect a handsome return on years of work to fill the ranks with loyalists."

Political comeback

The army's alliance with the Islamists has not escaped the attention of the RSF propaganda machine, whose political discourse is dominated by rhetoric of inclusion, democracy and ridding the nation of the Islamists, whose time in power saw the Afro-Arab nation of 50 million roiled in corruption, crippling economic woes and international isolation and sanctions.

The RSF's narrative has resonated with some members of Sudan's liberal political establishment as well as rebel groups in the West and south of the country who see Gen Al Burhan and his top lieutenants guilty of allowing remnants of the Al Bashir regime to make a political comeback.

Gen Al Burhan has labelled those politicians "traitors" while the military-backed prosecution issued arrest warrants for many of them.

Gen Al Burhan was in Cairo this week for talks with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El Sisi whose 11-year rule in Sudan's powerful northern neighbour is based in large part on zero tolerance of political Islam.

Sources briefed on their talks said Gen Al Burhan explained to his host that the "presence" of Islamists on the scene was still needed as his army and the allied militias prepare to retake vast areas still under RSF control in the western Darfur region and parts of Kordofan to the south-west of Khartoum.

"He is a religious man but he is not an Islamist in the Al Bashir mould," said one of the sources about Gen Al Burhan.

"Many of his officers and several top generals are."

Al Shafie Ahmed contributed to this report from Kampala, Uganda.