Some armed movements in Darfur began to deal with the ongoing conflict between the Sudanese army forces and the Rapid Support Forces, leading them to abandon their declared neutrality, as the so-called partners of the Darfur path, which signed the Juba Peace Agreement with Khartoum, formed a joint force with elements of the army to control security. and peace in the region.

It is a step on the surface to preserve the public interest, and in its content it could carry great opportunism if the form of cooperation developed far beyond the scope of North Darfur state.

Political circles understood this step in a pragmatic context that might pave the way for siding with the army’s position at the expense of the Rapid Support Forces, which have an important social and military incubator in Darfur, hoping to extract new gains, if the army achieves a remarkable military superiority.

These circles suggested that the security cover that the armed factions bestowed on their movement was intended to confirm their keenness on the continuation of the Juba Agreement, from which they reaped several material gains and granted them a comfortable participation in the central authority, which is what made them always evade the implementation of benefits related to security arrangements with the army and leave It’s vague.

Five of the armed movements, which signed the Juba Agreement, recently deployed hundreds of fighters on four-wheel drive vehicles to secure government institutions and international organizations in the city of El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state, after their leaders felt the danger of the security vacuum left by the battles between the army and the Rapid Support Forces.

This force, consisting of the movements of the Sudan Liberation Movement, the Transitional Council, Justice and Equality, the Sudan Liberation Forces Gathering, and the Sudanese Alliance, is trying to work to maintain security and stability in Darfur, to spread reassurance among civilians and to fight the unruly groups that have been active in looting and attacks.

El Fasher witnessed military battles and bloody clashes between the army and the Rapid Support Forces in separate parts of the city, in which a number of civilians were killed, before mediation led by the governor of North Darfur, Nimr Abdel Rahman, and tribal and religious community leaders succeeded in bringing about a cease-fire.

There were fears that the formed movements would support the army’s Darfur track if clashes raged between its commander, Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the commander of the Rapid Support Forces, Lieutenant General Muhammad Hamdan Dagalo (Hamidti), or part of the conflict moved directly to El Fasher, which affects the societal structure in the region and plunges it into conflict. Before me, similar to what is happening in the city of El Geneina, the capital of West Darfur state, and recently witnessed the occurrence of dozens of victims.

Sudanese sources revealed to The Arab Weekly that the five movements entrenched in Darfur consist of a social mosaic, most of which hail from African tribes. These movements, and today the opposite may happen, hoping to block some military arteries that could represent an important tributary for General Hemeti.

The sources indicated that the leaders of the five movements are betting on the army achieving superiority in the battles of Khartoum, and are preparing for the next step, which is that these movements will be the ready alternative to the Rapid Support Forces through more cooperation with the military establishment and facilitating the process of integration into it after feeling that the path between Al-Burhan and Hamidti has reached a dead end. dangerous slope.

Many of the armed movements in the west maintained a distance between the two men as they waited for the moment of decisiveness to decide their final fate, because they would not be able to remain on the brink of neutrality for long, while the majority of the leaders of the five states in Darfur belong to these movements, and the governor of the region is the head of the Sudan Liberation Army Movement, Mini Arko. Minawi, that is, they officially owe allegiance to the Transitional Sovereignty Council, which is headed by Al-Burhan.

The Rapid Support Forces distanced themselves from raising the problematic position of the armed movements and were relieved to announce their neutrality, even if it appeared to be positive neutrality, i.e. it carries seeds of support for the army, so as not to open a new front at a time when its efforts are focused on resolving the battles in Khartoum.

Sudanese researcher Muhammad Turshin told The Arab Weekly that the armed movements are not in a good position, and it is difficult for them to announce their siding with the Rapid Support Forces at present, because the one who determines the process of merging them into the regular forces is the army, which imposes general conditions for merging and demobilization, and these movements have complex calculations. It makes it unable to announce a clear bias to this or that party now, and it realizes that the matter may have political and security repercussions for it in the future.

The ongoing battles in Khartoum began to cast a dark shadow over the Darfur region, which was manifested in El Geneina through repeated clashes between African and Arab tribes, and could expand and bring back the specter of civil war to the fore, with a discrepancy in previous alliances, and the locations of the active movements in Territory.

What reinforces the possibility of the five movements, or at least some of them, leaning toward the army is that some of them adopt Islamic ideas and have been hiding them for a long time. The Justice and Equality Movement, which is headed by Jibril Ibrahim, who is also a finance minister in the current Sudanese government, has been frequently reported as one of the military arms of the Islamic Front that he founded. The late Hassan al-Turabi.

The features of this loyalty may soon unfold when it is confirmed that the remnants of the regime of former President Omar al-Bashir and the Muslim Brotherhood play a pivotal role in inciting the army against the Rapid Support Forces, because the strategic depth of the leaders of Justice and Equality is centered in Darfur.

In addition, recent insinuations carried by statements by Jibril Ibrahim himself indicated that his movement would not stand idly by, which opens the door for his direct participation in the struggle to preserve his political interests in alignment with ideological tendencies that he hid in the past years when it was confirmed that the Islamic movement is facing security and political encirclement and is no longer influential in the official scene. A large number of parties and civil forces rejected the return of their leaders to the scene.

This article was originally published by alarab-co-uk