By: Mohammed Abdullah Ibrahim
Amid the raging flames of this brutal war, the contours of the Islamist project. antagonistic to the revolution. emerge with striking clarity. Every crime committed, every silenced voice, unfolds under the orchestration of a calculating mind operating both in the shadows and in broad daylight, determined to reclaim what the Islamist elite lost after the glorious December Revolution. This war is not merely a military conflict; it is the climax of a totalitarian political project aimed at assassinating the Sudanese people’s dream and reengineering collective consciousness at gunpoint and from pulpits of incitement.
Chaos has been unleashed, and the ideologically-driven Islamist brigades now roam freely in army-controlled areas. These are not random militias. they are meticulously constructed units, forged by the defunct regime, trained in advanced military tactics both inside and outside Sudan, including in Iran, Pakistan, Chechnya, Russia, and Turkey. They have participated in warfare and terrorist acts domestically and abroad. Since the 1990s, they have fought in the wars of the South, the Nuba Mountains, Blue Nile, and Darfur, driven by a religious ideology that devalues human life. one that has nothing to do with faith, but rather feeds on hatred, violence, and the culture of torture, shaped by their intellectual, political, and doctrinal upbringing.
The Islamist movement’s violence has not been confined within Sudan’s borders. Their militaristic ventures have extended into neighboring countries. with their own leaders openly admitting this. From the attempted assassination of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Addis Ababa in 1996, to their involvement in the Libyan conflict. where Omar al-Bashir acknowledged that his forces were among the first to help extremist groups seize Tripoli. Sudan’s Islamists have never shied away from exporting conflict. The Sudanese Foreign Ministry even incited Islamist factions in Libya against Sudanese citizens, branding them as rebel affiliates from Darfur. ironically, the same rebel groups now allied with them in this war.
Their fingerprints are also evident in the wars of Chad, the Central African Republic, Eritrea, Ethiopia, South Sudan, and even Yemen. where, for the first time in history, the Sudanese army was deployed in a foreign civil war as a paid mercenary force, with no national interest at stake.
From its inception, the Islamic Front built its political project on the foundations of violence and mobilization, manipulating religious sentiment among millions of Sudanese, particularly during the civil war in the South. That conflict provided fertile ground for the movement’s expansion, especially among students and youth. Backed by a massive propaganda machine that exploited every state resource, they infused Sudanese communities with sectarian rhetoric, fueling ethnic divisions and tribal conflicts. especially in rural and ethnically diverse border areas between North and South. Their incitement led to mass mobilization and racially charged participation in the southern war, which ultimately culminated in South Sudan’s secession in 2011. a development that barely registered any remorse from the Islamists.
Following the secession, eager to continue profiting from civil wars against their own people, the Islamists reignited conflict in the Nuba Mountains on June 6, 2011, and Blue Nile on September 5, 2011, under the pretext of “fighting SPLA rebels.” Among the targeted figures in that war was the current Deputy Commander-in-Chief, Malik Agar. who today fights alongside the very Islamists who once sought to eliminate him. The same justifications used in those wars are being recycled today to validate the ongoing conflict since April 15, 2023: “fighting the Rapid Support Forces rebellion”. a tragic repetition of a civil war cycle that has gripped Sudan for decades without respite.
Over thirty years in power, the Islamist movement achieved its most dangerous goal: complete control over Sudan’s state institutions and wealth. Their primary investment was war. civil wars, ethnic cleansing, genocide, and war crimes. well-documented atrocities with ICC arrest warrants issued against al-Bashir, Ahmed Haroun, Abdel Rahim Mohamed Hussein, and other military officers and militia leaders allied with the Islamist regime, particularly in Darfur.
In the cities, the Islamists’ war against the Sudanese people has never ceased. Their machinery of repression continues to target activists, trade unionists, students, and peaceful protesters nationwide. unrelenting since their rise to power until today.
But Islamists didn’t just ignite this war. they are one of its main architects. They plan it, fund it, recruit for it, and propagate it through a media apparatus and religious sermons dripping with hatred. They distort sacred texts to justify killings and atrocities, once again cloaking their bloody project in the garb of “jihad” to lure the youth into battle with deceitful slogans that weaponize faith as a fast-track to paradise.
The true danger of the Islamist agenda lies not only in the scale of the destruction but in the seeds of perpetual conflict they sow within Sudanese society. Their aim is not to recognize Sudan’s legitimate diversity, but to fracture it along lines of hatred and division. transforming a nation striving for civil rule, peace, and justice into a scorched land ravaged by death squads, terrorism, and self-serving interests.
To be continued ..
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