Sudan's Islamists plot post-war comeback by supporting army

KHARTOUM/PORT SUDAN (Reuters) -The Islamist movement toppled in Sudan's uprising in 2019 could support an extended period of army rule as it eyes a political comeback after deploying fighters in the country's war, according to some of its leading members.

In his first media interview in years, Ahmed Haroun, chairman of the former ruling National Congress Party (NCP) and one of four Sudanese wanted by the International Criminal Court, told Reuters that he foresaw the army staying in politics after the war, and that elections could provide a route back to power for his party and the Islamist movement connected to it.

More than two years of war between Sudan's army and the RSF has caused waves of ethnic killings, famine and massive displacement, drawing in foreign powers and creating what the United Nations has called the world's biggest humanitarian crisis.

While the RSF remains entrenched in its western stronghold of Darfur and parts of the south and there is no sign of a stop to the fighting, the army has made major advances in recent months, gains that Islamist operatives say they helped bring about.

Army leaders and former regime loyalists have played down their relationship, wary of the unpopularity of ousted ex-leader Omar al-Bashir and his NCP allies. But the army's recent advances have allowed the Islamist movement to entertain a return to a national role, according to accounts from seven of the movement's members and six military and government sources.

The NCP is rooted in Sudan's Islamist movement, which was dominant in the early Bashir era during the 1990s when the country hosted Osama bin Laden, but has long abandoned hardline ideology in favour of amassing power and wealth.

The movement's resurgence could cement the reversal of Sudan's pro-democracy uprising that began in late 2018, while complicating the country's ties with regional players suspicious of Islamist influence - including hardening a split with the powerful United Arab Emirates.

In a sign of the trend, several Islamists and their allies have been appointed since last month to the cabinet of Kamil Idris, the technocratic new prime minister named in May by the army.

In response to a request for comment from Reuters, a representative for Sudan's army leadership said, "some Islamist leaders may want to use the war to return to power, but we say categorically that the army does not ally or coordinate with any political party and does not allow any party to interfere."

'ARMY IN POLITICS'

Haroun, speaking to Reuters late at night from a hideaway without electricity in northern Sudan, said the NCP foresaw a hybrid governing structure in which the army retained sovereign control "until all threats are removed", while elections brought in civilians to run the government.

"We have taken a strategic decision to not return to power other than by the ballot box after the war," Haroun, a Bashir ally who escaped from prison at the start of the conflict, said in the interview in late April.

"The Western model is not practical in Sudan," he said. "We must develop a model for the role of the army in politics given fragile security and foreign greed, as this won't be the first or last war in the country."

A senior army officer suggested that a transitional period run exclusively by the army prior to elections "would not be brief."

Haroun, wanted by the ICC for alleged involvement in war crimes and genocide in Darfur in the early 2000s -- charges he dismisses as political -- suggested a referendum to choose which army officer would lead the country.

The revival of Islamist factions began before the outbreak of the war in April 2023, during a period when a transition towards civilian rule was veering off course.

The factions had established deep roots in Sudan's ruling apparatus and in the army during Bashir's three decades in power. When army commander General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, who became head of Sudan's ruling council shortly after Bashir's overthrow in 2019, staged a coup two years later, he drew on their support.

The RSF participated in the coup but was suspicious of the Islamists, and as the RSF and the army moved to protect their interests ahead of another planned transition, tensions erupted into warfare.

The RSF quickly seized most of the capital, Khartoum, and made other advances, before the army started to claw back ground, extending its control over eastern and central Sudan.

FIGHTERS

An NCP document shared with Reuters by a senior Islamist official points to a major role for Islamist networks since early on in the fighting.

In the document, Islamist operatives lay out their activities to party leaders, taking credit for directly contributing between 2,000 and 3,000 fighters to the army's war effort over the first year of the conflict.

They also take credit for training hundreds of thousands of ordinary civilians who answered an army call for public mobilisation, of whom more than 70,000 joined operations - a move that greatly bolstered the army's diminished ground forces, according to three military sources from the army or aligned with it.

The military sources put estimates of fighters directly linked to the NCP at about 5,000, mainly serving in "special forces" units that have made some of the largest gains for the army, particularly in Khartoum.

Other Islamist-trained combatants are serving in an elite, re-constituted unit belonging to the general intelligence service, according to Islamist fighters and military sources.

Army sources and Haroun said Islamist factions held no power over the army. Haroun also said he doubted the veracity of the document seen by Reuters and claims of thousands of NCP-linked troops fighting alongside the army, without elaborating.

But he acknowledged that it was "no secret that we support the army in response to the commander-in-chief's call, and to ensure our survival".

Burhan has said repeatedly he would not allow the outlawed NCP back to power, whilst enabling the return of Islamist civil servants including to such high-level roles as foreign minister and minister of cabinet affairs.

The RSF has played up the Islamist connection as the army has minimised it. "The Islamists are the ones who set off this war in order to return to power once again, and they are the ones managing this war," said Mohamed Mukhtar, an advisor to the RSF's leadership.

Two military officers familiar with the issue said Burhan was balancing a desire not to cede influence to political figures with his need for military, bureaucratic, and financial support from the Islamist network.

FOREIGN ALLIES

The Sudanese Islamist movement has long given members military training, including in what was known under Bashir as the reservist Popular Defence Force (PDF).

During the war, semi-independent Islamist units have emerged, most prominently the al-Baraa Ibn Malik brigade, named after an early Islamic figure.

One of its leaders, 37-year-old engineer Owais Ghanim, told Reuters he had been wounded three times, participating in crucial battles to break the siege on army bases in the capital earlier this year.

Under army orders, members of the brigade have access to light arms, artillery, and drones, he said.

"We do not fight for the Islamists to return to power, we fight to push back the (RSF) aggression," said Ghanim. "After Islamists' participation in the war, I expect they will return via elections."

Rights monitors have accused the brigade of extrajudicial killings in newly re-captured parts of Khartoum, accusations Ghanim denied.

Army leaders have said the brigade and other groups will be integrated into the army after the war, to avoid a repeat of what happened with the RSF, which the armed forces developed to fight an insurgency in Darfur under Bashir.

Military sources say that during the war, senior Islamist figures have also used long-standing ties with countries like Iran, Qatar, and Turkey to help the army secure weapons. Haroun said he could neither confirm nor deny this.

Any further alignment with those countries, and the expanded influence of the Islamists within Sudan, could strain relations with the United States and further antagonise the UAE, which helped the army and RSF oust Bashir and has sought to roll back political Islam internationally.

The army cut diplomatic ties with the UAE earlier this year, accusing it of being the RSF's biggest supporter, a charge the Gulf state denies.

The Iranian, Turkish and Emirati foreign ministries and the Qatari international media office did not respond to requests for comment.

(Additional reporting and writing by Nafisa Eltahir; Editing by Aidan Lewis)