Jahangir Mohammed, Director of the Ayaan Institute, argues that 57 years of military rule, combined with the ideology of Arabism using political Islam as a cover, together with religious leaders and external influence, have collectively dismembered and destroyed Sudan as a functioning state.

The Sudanese Army Created the RSF — How 57 years of military rule have destroyed Sudan.

When Sudan erupted into civil war in April 2023, I was asked: Who are the good guys? Is it General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan’s Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), claiming to defend the state? Or General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF), portraying themselves as rebels fighting for democracy? My response was that the harsh truth is more straightforward—and far darker: there are no good guys. Sudan’s civil war resulted from decades of militarised rule, racial hierarchy, internal political failure and foreign interference.

Since Sudan gained independence in 1956, the country has spent 57 of its 69 years under military rule. Civilian governments have been short-lived and repeatedly disrupted by coups, while long-term military regimes – notably those of General Abboud (1958–64), Jaafar Nimeiri (1969–85), and Omar al-Bashir (1989–2019) – have dominated Sudan’s political landscape. Even after the 2019 civilian revolution, the military reasserted control in 2021. The army has governed Sudan for about 82% of its post-independence history, shaping the nation’s institutions, economy, and conflicts. It is a history of brutal military rule, often allied with leaders of Islamic movements, which has resulted in political failure and state collapse.

Both the SAF and RSF are products of the same violent martial system, and both have been supported by rival foreign powers that have turned Sudan into a proxy battlefield with horrors committed against the Sudanese people, especially those of African descent.

From Janjaweed to RSF: How the Army Created Its Own Monster

The RSF’s history does not start in 2023 but in Darfur in 2003, when non-Arab rebel groups—the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) and Justice and Equality Movement (JEM)—began their struggle against Khartoum’s neglect and ethnic discrimination. These movements for racial justice appeared after the publication of the Black Book: Imbalance of Power and Wealth in the Sudan (Kitab al-aswad) in May 2000, followed by a second edition in August 2002. The book states, “This publication unveils the level of injustice practised by successive governments, secular and theocratic, democratic or autocratic, since the country’s independence in 1956 to this date.” Using statistical analysis, it revealed that the riverine Arabs near Khartoum (in the North) have held a disproportionate amount of political power compared to other ethnic groups. Every President had been from the North, and it also examined senior administrative and judicial roles, reaching the same conclusions. The roots of this divide-and-rule empowerment of Arab tribal elites are rooted in the British colonial occupation of Sudan.

In response to the Darfurian movements for justice, President Omar al-Bashir’s regime turned to tribal militias to suppress them. These militias, mainly composed of Arab nomadic tribes such as the Rizeigat, were called the Janjaweed (from Arabic Jinn Javad)—meaning ‘Jinn or devils on horseback’. Armed, trained, and coordinated by the Sudanese army and intelligence agencies, they destroyed villages, killed civilians, and displaced millions. The Jinn Javad became the architect of a genocide against ethnic African-origin Darfurians.

In 2013, the Jinn Javad militias were renamed the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), officially subordinate to the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS), but operating independently under Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (‘Hemedti’), a former Jinn Javad field leader. The Sudanese army thus established a parallel force—a brutal paramilitary group, built on atrocities committed against the African-origin Muslim people of Darfur,  loyal not to the state but to itself. The RSF became wealthy by controlling and exporting gold supplies and providing mercenaries to fight in the Gulf states’ wars against Yemen’s Houthis and in Libya (particularly the UAE). As long as Yemenis were being killed, the Gulf states and the West cared little about the empowerment of the RSF.

Hijacking the Revolution

When the Sudanese people rose in late 2018 against Bashir’s 30-year dictatorship, it was a genuine grassroots civilian revolution rather than a religious revolution, with teachers, doctors, students, and workers risking everything for freedom and dignity. In April 2019, Bashir was overthrown, not by the people, but by his generals. The army, led by Burhan, and the RSF, led by Hemedti, moved in to seize control of the revolution before civilians could do so. They formed a Transitional Military Council (TMC), promising democracy but consolidating their grip instead. When protesters demanded civilian rule, both forces turned their guns on them. The June 3, 2019, massacre in Khartoum, carried out by RSF troops under Hemedti’s command, killed more than 120 peaceful demonstrators and symbolised the betrayal of the revolution.

The Political Ideology That Destroyed Sudan: Arabism Dressed as Islam, and the Politics of Denial

Beneath Sudan’s endless coups and conflicts lies a deeper sickness: the ideology of Arab supremacy or Arabism, wrapped in the language of political Islam. Since independence, Khartoum’s rulers, politicians, soldiers, and religious scholars alike have defined national identity through Arabism, marginalising the country’s non-Arab majority (before the South separated). It was under Hassan al-Turabi and the Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood that ideology evolved into a fusion of Arab racial identity, political Islam, and military power. Turabi’s rise in the 1970s and 1980s gave the Sudanese military dictatorship a new ideological mission. His movement, inspired by the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood ( he joined the Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood as a student and became its leader in the early 1960s), preached that Sudan must become the vanguard of an ‘Islamic Arab civilisation.’ In practice, this meant concentrating power in the hands of Arabised elites, purging secular and African-origin officers, and treating the peripheries as colonial frontiers to be subdued and crushed in the name of religion. It was Turabi and his movement that backed Omar al-Bashir in his seizure of power in 1989. Sudan became the first Brotherhood-run state in the Arab world. The regime led a jihad against South Sudan and the Nuba Mountains, hosted Osama bin Laden, and turned the army into an ideological tool of ‘Islamic Arab supremacy.’

Arabism gave the generals a myth of superiority; Islam gave them divine cover. Together, they justified decades of war against their own citizens, from the South to Darfur. Even after Turabi’s fall, his legacy endured: the political class, Arab nationalist elites and Ulema continued to ally with the army, seeing it as the guardian of a false national identity.

Turabi, in power, also attempted to internationalise his political movement through the establishment of “The Popular Arab and Islamic Congress”. The first Congress was held in 1991 in Sudan, with leaders of Islamic movements from around the world invited to attend. Two more Congresses were subsequently held. The late Dr Kalim Siddiqui, a well-known and respected British Muslim political thinker among global Islamic movements, was invited to participate in the Congress in the mid-1990s. He requested that I accompany him to meet many of these leaders. Although I desperately wanted to attend, I was unable to do so because I had not obtained leave from work. Upon his return, he was bitterly disappointed. He explained to me at length the confusion and conflation at the conference between Arabism and Islam, as well as nationalism and Islam. He also perceived this, along with the relationship between Turabi’s Islamic movement and militarism, as a recipe for failure. An Islamic revolution in his political analysis would never come through the generals.

Eventually, General Bashir and the military became the sole power in Sudan, imprisoning Turabi twice.  Dr Kalim had been correct in his analysis, and both elements he identified have been responsible for Sudan’s destruction.  This confusion continues to exist among Muslim activists even today in different countries, the conflation of nationalism (ethnic nationalists) using Islam as cover and as a legitimate form of political Islam.

Whilst the focus of Sudan’s dreadful plight is usually on external actors, very few are prepared to critically assess the internal political dynamics and failures of those who have led or allied with the generals in pursuit of power.

The Split: Generals Turned Rivals

By 2022, the fragile arrangement between Burhan and Hemedti unravelled. The SAF demanded that the RSF be integrated into the regular army,  a move Hemedti saw as an attempt to strip him of power and control his ill-got wealth. Tensions boiled over in April 2023, igniting a war between two generals who had once toppled Bashir together. Each claimed to defend Sudan from the other. In truth, both are defending the same corrupt system that has looted and destroyed Sudan for decades.

Sudan: A Proxy War for Foreign Powers

The war that erupted in 2023 is not limited to Sudan. It has evolved into a regional proxy war, fueled by foreign money and arms. The RSF, flush with gold from Darfur mines and mercenary earnings from Yemen, enjoys financial and logistical support from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), with supply routes through Libya, Chad, and the Central African Republic. The SAF, meanwhile, is backed by Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey, each pursuing its own strategic interests, seeking regional hegemony, with the US, UK, and EU states as key actors behind the scenes.  T

Ethnic Cleansing, Again

Nowhere is the horror more familiar than in Darfur, where history repeats itself. In towns like El Geneina and now Al Fashir, the RSF and allied Arab militias have carried out ethnic massacres against the Masalit and other non-Arab groups — eerily reminiscent of 2003. Estimates suggest that around two-thirds to three-quarters of Darfur’s population are from non-Arab or African-origin groups. Yet, they remain targeted in a cycle of racialised violence and crimes against humanity.

A State Built on Militias

Sudan’s modern history is characterised by a pattern of military rule, with the army also empowering militias, only to lose control over them. In the 1980s, Khartoum armed tribal militias against the South, only for them to become warlords. In the 2000s, it created the Janjaweed, who later evolved into the RSF. In 2023, the army’s attempt to disarm the RSF triggered a war that could potentially destroy Sudan. Each generation sees the army’s arrogance reproducing its own enemies.

No Heroes, Only Victims

Neither Burhan nor Hemedti represent the Sudanese people. Both command forces which have been implicated in mass killings, looting, and sexual violence. The war has cost tens of thousands of lives, displaced millions, and created one of the world’s most significant humanitarian crises. Yet, foreign sponsors continue to send weapons and purchase resources from them, hoping their side will win. A grotesque reminder that Sudan’s tragedy is also big business.

Independent Sudanese Civilian Rule: The Only Way Out

There are no good guys in Sudan’s war — only victims and profiteers. Peace will not be achieved through generals or their foreign backers, only by the Sudanese people/civilians who persist in resisting both sides: doctors in underground hospitals, activists in exile, and communities still dreaming of the revolution they began in 2019. Until their voices supplant those of the generals and warlords, Sudan will remain what the Janjaweed and RSF have made it — a nation hostage to the monsters its own army has created.  It is time to send the generals back to the barracks and for a genuine, civilian-led, accountable governance in Sudan. Sadly, that may not occur in a unified Sudanese state.