Is Gen Abdel Fattah Al Burhan beholden to Sudan's Islamists?

"Who said the Muslim Brotherhood controls the army?" Sudan's army chief Gen Abdel Fattah Al Burhan indignantly asked in a recent address to his nation.

"Where exactly are they? It's hearsay. Come and show us where they are! Tell us what they look like. These are lies perpetuated to scare the Americans and our brothers in Egypt," said the furious de facto ruler.

Gen Al Burhan's angry reaction to widespread reports that he's allied the army with Islamists once loyal to former dictator Omar Al Bashir, say analysts, amounts to little more than a crude ruse timed to coincide with efforts by the US and regional powers to end Sudan's 31-month-old civil war.

The general's perceived association with the Islamists, however, is far from being baseless and can hardly be viewed as far-fetched. Admission to the military academy had, for most of Al Bashir's 29-year rule, been conditional on a written recommendation by the dictator's then-ruling National Conference Party (NCP).

A Sudanese refugee boy from El Fasher carrying his younger brother at the Tine transit camp in eastern Chad. Reuters

"For nearly three decades, no one joined the military academy who wasn't directly connected to the Islamist movement," said Sami Saeed, a US-based Sudan expert. "The Islamists don't control Al Burhan as much as they control the entire army. They decide who does what and when, and he simply cannot get away from them. This is something that all Sudanese know to be a fact."

It's also true that Gen Mohamad Dagalo, commander of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces - the army's war foe - has not shied away from repeatedly citing to promote the RSF's cause and curry favour with the West and regional powers suspicious of Islamists.

Gen Dagalo, whose paramilitary's forerunner is a notorious militia called Janjaweed, has also been using the army's links to the Islamists as a central plank in a public discourse casting him as a champion of nationalism fighting to save Sudan from a repeat of the authoritarian and corrupt rule of the Islamists under Al Bashir.

Fighters and assets

While seemingly unconvincing, Gen Al Burhan's denial of links to Islamists coincides with moves by US President Donald Trump to designate the Muslim Brotherhood - mother of the Islamist movement in Sudan and elsewhere in the region - as a terrorist organisation. It also comes at a time of growing calls by mediators to exclude the Islamists of Gen Al Bashir's National Conference Party from Sudan's postwar democratic transition.

Sudan's a Gen. Abdel Fattah Al Burhan. AFP

"Talk about the influence of Islamists in the army, maybe a little exaggerated, but there certainly exists a tactical alliance between them that, at least for now, serves the interests of both parties," said Sudanese analyst Osman Al Mirghany.

"Al Burhan needs their men in the fight against the Rapid Support Forces and to train civilian volunteers. He also needs their vast economic and political assets because he has none of his own.

"For the Islamists, Al Burhan and the war offer them a possible route back to power," said Mr Al Mirghany, who cited the appointment in May of several Islamists in the military-backed government of Prime Minister Kamil Idris.

The Islamists, moreover, are known to have close links with several regional powers. Those connections are believed to have helped the army procure weapons from Islamist-friendly countries.

In reality, contend Mr Al Mirghany and other analysts, Gen Al Burhan is the architect of the return of the Islamists to the public sphere after their patron Al Bashir was toppled by the military in 2019 amid a popular uprising against his regime.

Rapid Support Forces' commander Gen Mohamad Dagalo. Getty Images.

Their resurgence began when Gen Al Burhan and Gen Dagalo staged a coup in 2021 that toppled a civilian-led, transitional government, plunged the country into chaos and restored its international standing as a pariah state like it was for most of Al Bashir's years in power.

Soon after, a powerful committee set up to dismantle Al Bashir's Islamist legacy was dissolved.