Muslim Brotherhood seeks dominance over Sudan

Leading aides of Sudan’s former longtime ruler Omar al-Bashir are now free after reports of a prison break earlier this week amid the conflict that has gripped the country.

As figures from Sudan’s political Islamic movement, which came to power via al-Bashir’s military coup in 1989, their revival could tilt the balance of power in the war between Sudan’s army and a rival paramilitary known as the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

Since fighting erupted on April 15, neither side has gained the upper hand in Khartoum, the capital. That could change after Ahmed Haroun – a prominent member of al-Bashir’s National Congress Party (NCP) who is also wanted by the International Criminal Court – urged all Sudanese to back the army on Tuesday as he announced that he and other inmates had left Khartoum’s Kober prison.

His call has many fearing that he could also rally shadow militias, which al-Bashir set up to protect him and his party, to help the army.

Al-Bashir created the RSF in 2013 to coup-proof his government from senior military generals and his own feared intelligence service, going so far as to refer to the paramilitary force’s leader Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo as “Hemyatee” (“my protection”).

But senior military leader General Shams al-Din Kabbashi this week tried to distance the army from the NCP by blaming the latter for creating the RSF a decade ago.

Other members of the army’s top brass, which are believed to be close to Sudan’s political Islamic movement, are expected to welcome NCP officials vying for relevance with open arms.