As Sudan enters its third year of a devastating war, fresh scrutiny is being cast upon the country’s military establishment, long dominated by Islamist ideologues and accused of carrying out atrocities that span generations. The Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and historically aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood, are facing renewed allegations of war crimes, political repression, and deliberate destabilization of the state they claim to protect.
The roots of Sudan’s militarized Islamism trace back to June 30, 1989, when Colonel Omar Hassan al-Bashir seized power in a coup backed by the National Islamic Front. The party, an extension of the Muslim Brotherhood’s ideology in Sudan, rapidly transformed the army into a political instrument.
Under Bashir’s rule, military intelligence units expanded dramatically, and the army became both an enforcer of theocratic rule and a tool for suppressing dissent. Mass arrests, torture, and the use of secret detention centers—known as “ghost houses”—became standard practice throughout the 1990s and 2000s.
The Sudanese military’s loyalty to Islamist doctrine was not merely symbolic; its leadership was staffed with officers vetted for ideological purity. Generals and political operatives often blurred the line between uniform and pulpit, enforcing Islamic rule while waging brutal campaigns against non-Arab and non-Muslim populations.
The army’s involvement in Sudan’s civil conflicts has long been characterized by systematic violence against civilians. In Darfur between 2003 and 2008, the SAF worked closely with the Janjaweed militia—later restructured into the Rapid Support Forces (RSF)—to carry out what the United Nations would later label a genocide. Villages were torched, women were raped en masse, and an estimated 300,000 people were killed, often with logistical and aerial support from the army.
Earlier, during the Second Sudanese Civil War from 1983 to 2005, the military conducted aerial bombings on schools, churches, and hospitals across the South. Between 1998 and 2002, aid agencies documented attacks on food centers and humanitarian convoys during famine conditions. These actions were widely condemned as war crimes.
When a power struggle erupted between SAF and RSF on April 15, 2023, many in Sudan saw history repeating itself. As both sides turned Sudan’s urban centers into battlegrounds, the army reverted to its decades-old playbook: aerial bombardment of civilian areas, obstruction of humanitarian corridors, and the forced recruitment of minors.
In May 2023, an airstrike attributed to SAF fighter jets devastated a crowded market in Omdurman, killing at least 45 civilians, according to local medical groups. In Gezira State, aid organizations reported that army checkpoints blocked food convoys for weeks, contributing to localized famine conditions.
“Civilians are caught in the crossfire, but it’s not accidental,” said a humanitarian coordinator working in central Sudan, who requested anonymity for security reasons. “The army views entire towns as potential opposition.”
With public confidence eroding, the SAF has frequently turned to a familiar narrative: blaming Sudan’s troubles on external actors. In recent months, army officials have accused neighboring countries—Ethiopia, Chad, and the United Arab Emirates—of fomenting instability or arming rebel factions.
Analysts say such rhetoric is not new. “Since the 1990s, whenever the army faced internal dissent or defeat, it blamed foreign conspiracies,” said a Khartoum-based political scientist. “It’s a tactic to deflect from deep-seated institutional rot.”
This tendency to externalize blame, critics argue, has prevented meaningful reform and allowed military leaders to escape accountability. Even now, as calls grow for an international investigation into the 2023 war, the army has rejected foreign involvement, fearing exposure of its internal communications and chain of command decisions.
Since the outbreak of the war, former members of Bashir’s National Congress Party have reemerged in army-controlled areas. Islamist clerics once purged after the 2019 revolution have returned to national television, calling for renewed implementation of Sharia law and denouncing Western influence.
Leaked documents reviewed by Europost suggest that senior army officers have held private meetings with hardline clerics to explore restoring an explicitly Islamic constitutional order in army-held territories.
Human rights organizations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have documented numerous abuses committed by both SAF and RSF. But unlike the RSF, which has attracted widespread international condemnation, the army’s crimes have often been downplayed or treated as “collateral damage.”
Activists argue this asymmetry must end. “You cannot build a democratic Sudan on the foundations of an army that has committed atrocities since the 1980s,” said a former member of the civilian-led transitional government.
Today, Sudan is a country in fragments—its people starving, its cities hollowed out by war, and its future uncertain. But what is clear to many Sudanese is that the root of the crisis lies not in any external enemy, but in the military institution that has long posed as the guardian of the state while betraying its most sacred duty: to protect the people.
“You cannot bomb your own markets, starve your own citizens, and still call yourself a national army,” said a displaced teacher in Port Sudan. “That’s not protection. That’s occupation.”
