Geneva peace talks at risk after Burhan's assassination attempt

The assassination attempt on the commander of the Sudanese Armed Forces General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan has raised questions about who was behind it, what its goals were, and to what extent it could impact Sudan's war - especially with US-led peace talks in Geneva around the corner.

The upcoming negotiations, which will be hosted by both Switzerland and Saudi Arabia on 14 August, will be the first major effort in months to get the army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) to sit together. Egypt, the UAE, the African Union, and the UN are due to attend the talks as observers.

The attack took place at a graduation ceremony at the Gebeit army base, about 100 km (62 miles) from the army's de facto capital Port Sudan in Sudan's Red Sea state. Some see the incident as sending a message to Burhan not to attend the negotiations.

Strikingly, neither Burhan's address nor the army’s statement explicitly accused any party of being responsible for the Gebeit attack, including the RSF. The RSF itself has remained silent about the incident and has not claimed responsibility, contrary to how it has acted on previous occasions.

Osman Abdul Rahman Suleyman, the official spokesman for Tamazuj, one of the movements that signed the Juba peace agreement with the government in 2020, rejected claims the RSF was responsible for the Gebeit attack, attributing it instead to Islamist and extremist movements within the army.

Analysts believe what is most significant about the incident is it targeted the army commander at a time all attention was focused on the military and RSF delegations attending the Geneva negotiations - to stop the war and save lives from severe famine, which is what all Sudanese, who have tasted the bitterness of war, wish for except for the Islamist elements which support the war."

According to Kamal Boulad, a member of the General Secretariat of the Coordination of Civil Democratic Forces, also known as Taqaddum - the largest anti-war coalition in Sudan: "the Islamist movement is using the war to exert political leverage to push for its return to power, whatever the losses for the Sudanese people, in terms of lives lost, and of infrastructure, which has been devastated and sent the country back decades".

Mohamed Al-Mokhtar, the legal adviser to the RSF commander, disputed RSF involvement in the assassination attempt on Al-Burhan, suggesting that the attack may be linked to internal rivalries among Islamists or generals.

Al-Basha Al-Tabiq, another adviser to the RSF commander, attributed the assassination attempt to a threat issued by the Al-Baraa Brigade, a group of young Islamists aligned with the army. Voices within the RSF dismissed the idea that it was behind the assassination attempt, saying the RSF is not so naïve as to believe Al-Burhan’s death would signal the end of the conflict.

Sudanese experts have suggested that Islamists with ties to the ousted regime of President Omar Al-Bashir, whether or not they are in the army, orchestrated the assault to pressure Al-Burhan into abstaining from the 14 August peace talks, either because they have reservations about his policies or due to foreign pressures exerted on the Sudanese military.