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| Africa Horn |
| Praetorians of the State: Inside the Ideology of Political Islam in Sudan |
| 2026-07-11 |
| [HORNREVIEW.ORG] This policy brief evaluates the systemic failure of international mediation in Sudan, identifying the ideological capture of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) as the primary impediment to peace. It traces the contemporary resurgence of political Islam through the ascent of the third generation of Sudanese Islamists and the structural embedding of the al-Baraa bin Malik Brigade within military intelligence apparatuses. Crucially, the brief contextualizes these internal dynamics against the March 2026 US terrorist designation, underscoring the urgent necessity for revised diplomatic strategies that confront the military’s ideological transformation as the core barrier to a negotiated democratic transition. ABSTRACT This paper examines the internal transformation of the Sudanese Armed Forces since fighting erupted in April 2023, arguing that a third generation of Sudanese Islamists, distinct in composition and method from the ideologues who engineered the 1989 coup and the technocrats who managed the Bashir state, has embedded itself within the officer corps, military intelligence, and the irregular formations operating under General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan's command. Drawing on the concept of praetorianism, the tendency of a military establishment to move beyond national defense and become the ultimate arbiter of domestic politics, the paper traces the movement's evolution from its origins among disillusioned university students in the 1940s through its consolidation under Nimeiri, its capture of the state in 1989, its bureaucratic entrenchment during the Bashir decades, and its wartime reconstitution inside the al-Baraa bin Malik Brigade and the broader Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood network. Particular attention is given to the March 2026 United States designation of the Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist entity and intended Foreign Terrorist Organization, and to the internal strains that designation exposed within Burhan's own command. The paper's central claim is that international mediation continues to treat Burhan as a sovereign actor capable of independently delivering a negotiated transition, a premise that his narrowing authority over his own army's ideological composition no longer supports. It closes by proposing policy measures that treat the ideological capture of the Sudanese Armed Forces as the primary obstacle to peace, rather than a secondary complication to be resolved once a ceasefire is reached. More at the link (pdf) Related: Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood: 2026-05-22 Sudan has essentially become an Islamic state in military uniform Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood: 2026-05-20 Sudan’s army says it has retaken Kern Kern and Doukan in Blue Nile state Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood: 2026-04-27 Sudan: 150k dead, 14 million displaced |
| Posted by:badanov |