The Flag Isn’t Neutral
The narrative framing of the Sudanese war is powerful. It is a conflict between two generals: General Hemedti of the international, nomadic, Janjaweed coalition against Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, whose Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) present themselves internationally as the last sovereign institution standing against militia chaos.
Al-Burhan’s unit of preservation is the national flag. The Framing of his forces as the sovereign and legal side is a powerful PR appeal to the rules based international order de jour; the trademark of Ukraine and Israel. Constitutional sovereignty grants diplomatic recognition, control over embassies, access to arms markets, and a seat at the United Nations. It also gives a regulatory sheen to its acts of war.
Ideology Behind the Uniform
But the reality on the ground is expressed in ideological, not nationalist, vocabulary. To understand what the SAF has become, one must look past the uniform and into the political engine behind it. The Islamist “Kizan” networks built during the 30-year rule of Omar al-Bashir were never dismantled. They were embedded into the officer corps, intelligence services, and economic infrastructure of the state and, today, three figures herald their return:
Ali Karti – A political strategist. As Secretary-General of the Sudanese Islamic Movement, Karti represents the connective tissue between the army and the Brotherhood’s ideological apparatus. His role is not tactical command but strategic alignment: ensuring the war preserves the Islamist project and blocks any post-war civilian transition that would dismantle it.
Ali Osman Taha – An ideologue, al-Bashir’s longtime deputy and one of the architects of Sudan’s Islamist state. Taha shaped the doctrine that fused religion with the civil service. His networks frame the war as necessary both for state and ideological survival.
Ahmed Haroun – An ICC-indicted figure who re-emerged after the outbreak of war, Haroun has historically bridged formal state structures and irregular militias. His significance lies in activating tribal constituencies and repurposing the same rhetoric that fuelled Darfur’s earlier atrocities.
Al-Burhan is merely the vehicle for these types of radical figures, whose rise is concurrent with another movement the world needs to hear about: the Al-Baraa bin Malik Brigade Fighting alongside SAF units, these fundamentalists do not cloak their rhetoric in technocratic language. Their videos and speeches invoke divine victory, martyrdom, and purification of the state.
The Kizan Comeback
The Muslim Brotherhood’s Sudanese experiment from 1989 to 2019 was the only full state capture by a Brotherhood movement anywhere in the world. After a brief reprieve, what we are seeing now is not a civil war between two generals, but rather a counter-revolution carried out under the protection of a flag. Don’t be deceived.
Sudan today sees the world’s largest displacement crisis. Entire regions of Darfur are being emptied with civilian populations uprooted not only by battlefield clashes but by deliberate destruction of neighborhoods, targeted killings, and systematic terror designed to alter demographic realities.
There are mounting allegations, including from U.S officials and NGOs such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty, that chemical agents have been used . This marks an extraordinary escalation: not merely war, but the revival of methods once associated with the darkest chapters of Sudan’s past.
In Darfur and other contested areas, the war is not simply about defeating the Rapid Support Forces of Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo. It is about purging the same non-Arab communities targeted under Bashir.
The Brotherhood’s Full Return
To compare the Muslim Brotherhood’s Modus Operandi in Sudan to another theatre, the most internationally recognised Brotherhood-linked armed movement is Hamas. Hamas operates as an insurgent force. It relies on asymmetric warfare, tunnels, rockets, and sudden attacks. Its violence is shocking and highly visible.
But Hamas does not control an air force, nor command sovereign customs authorities or regulate humanitarian corridors for an entire country. Sudan represents the state model of Brotherhood power. If insurgent branches of the Brotherhood can destabilise regions, sovereign branches can dismantles nations.
The question is no longer whether Sudan is collapsing. The question is whether the international community is prepared to admit that, in the name of “stability,” it may be legitimising the resurrection of the very Islamist state Sudanese civilians overthrew and, if so, what does that say about our willingness to accept the legitimacy of yet another radical regime?
