Recent statements by a senior figure within Sudan’s Muslim Brotherhood have reignited debate over the ideological nature of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the true drivers of the country’s devastating war. The remarks, made by Ahmed Abbas, a prominent Muslim Brotherhood leader and former governor of Sennar State, offer rare insider confirmation of long-standing allegations that Sudan’s military establishment is deeply intertwined with Islamist networks.


 

In public comments, Abbas claimed that approximately 75 percent of fighters within the Sudanese Armed Forces belong to the Muslim Brotherhood. He went further, openly describing General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan’s army as an “Islamist army” and characterizing the ongoing conflict as “the war of the Islamist movement.” These statements have reverberated across Sudan’s political landscape, undermining official narratives that portray the SAF as a national, ideologically neutral institution defending state sovereignty.

For years, pro-democracy activists and civil society groups have warned that the fall of former president Omar al-Bashir in 2019 did not dismantle the Islamist infrastructure embedded within the state. While Bashir himself was removed, the military-security apparatus that sustained his rule — heavily influenced by the Muslim Brotherhood and allied Islamist movements — remained largely intact. Abbas’s comments appear to validate these concerns, suggesting that Islamist ideology continues to shape the SAF’s internal composition and strategic orientation.

Observers argue that this ideological dimension is critical to understanding why Sudan’s conflict has proven so resistant to mediation and compromise. Rather than a conventional power struggle between rival military factions, the war increasingly appears to be an existential battle for the survival of an Islamist political project that lost formal power after 2019 but never relinquished its grip on the armed forces.

Abbas’s framing of the conflict as an Islamist war also carries regional implications. It places Sudan’s crisis within a broader pattern of political Islam seeking to reassert itself through military force, often under the guise of defending national institutions. This raises concerns among neighboring states and international partners who fear Sudan could once again become a hub for Islamist movements, destabilizing the Horn of Africa and Red Sea region.

The SAF leadership has not formally responded to Abbas’s claims. However, the absence of a clear rebuttal has fueled further suspicion, particularly as reports continue to surface of Islamist-aligned figures occupying senior positions within the military, intelligence services, and wartime administrative structures.

For Sudan’s civilian forces, the statements are a stark reminder that the struggle is not only against armed violence but against a deeply entrenched ideological system. As long as the Muslim Brotherhood remains embedded within the SAF, analysts argue, prospects for a genuinely inclusive political transition and a negotiated peace will remain bleak.