UN Photo/Loey Felipe
When a general tightens his grip, it seems more likely he is afraid of losing it. How else to interpret the three significant power plays General Abdel Fatteh Al-Burhan, commander of the Sudanese Armed Forces has attempted in the last month?
In July he ordered all armed groups out of Khartoum, though it remains to be seen whether this can be effected. Then he placed all SAF-supporting armed militia under his direct authority, that too remains to be seen. Then he reshuffled the SAF’s leadership, reportedly in an attempt to counter the grip of Islamist forces on his command structure.
After losing most of his regular troops to the RSF split, Burhan had to scramble together a mishmash of allies to retake Khartoum. He recruited traditional militias, former regime loyalists, and revived old paramilitary units like the Popular Defence Forces. Basically, he cobbled together whatever armed groups he could find to make up for his depleted army—and now that they are in possession of the city, they will be reluctant to let it go.
As for Burhan’s mid-August order that all allied militias should now fall under his direct command, it looks like a smart consolidation move on paper but the reality is likely to be messier.
The decree sweeps up that mishmash – Islamist brigades, tribal militias, and civilian volunteers – all now supposedly answering directly to Burhan. But these aren’t regular soldiers who follow orders. These are groups that have helped him to win battles but have their own ethnic, tribal and ideological loyalties, with their own agendas, territories, and power bases. These aren’t just mercenaries – they’re warlords-in-waiting who’ve tasted power and influence.
The last time Burhan tried this, he lost the Rapid Support Forces and sparked a civil war.
Later in August he moved again, this time in an effort to ensure the loyalty of his top brass. Returning from a meeting Switzerland with the US’s Africa advisor Massad Boulos, who reportedly told him to get some distance between himself and the Islamist cadres in his ranks, he shook up the military command structure.
Out went the air force commander, Lieutenant General al-Tahir Mohamed al-Awad al-Amin, fresh back from Pakistan where he had just signed a deal for the supply of $1.5bn in weaponry including fighter jets, drones and armoured vehicles. But Amin was becoming a political liability; he has been sanctioned by the European Union for indiscriminate aerial bombardment of densely populated residential areas during the conflict. As a severance bonus, Amin was bumped up a star to retire on a full general’s salary.
Out too went armoured corps commander General Nasr Eldeen Abdel Fattah and presidential guards commander General Nader Al Mansouri, the latter popular and considered a possible rival to Burhan. Several deputy chiefs of staff positions were also put out to grass, along with commanders in logistics, training, administration and operations.
Burhan is walking a tightrope between appearance and reality. As the international community slowly winds up efforts to restart negotiations, he has to at least look as though he may be more willing to begin talks, which he has fiercely resisted until now, and a little less willing to submit to the pressure from the Islamists within his own military and political ranks.
On the other hand the pressure from those ranks is real, and includes both those who believe, improbably, that the war against the RSF and its political allies can be won militarily, as well as those who resist any notion that Sudan can be anything other than an Islamist state similar to Iran.
From afar it looks less like he is walking that tightrope, but it is more likely that he’s clinging to it with both hands above a deep and nasty precipice.
