A "coordinated insurgency" of intelligence forces ignites security tension in Khartoum

Ahmed Fadl-Khartoum

Maintaining the forces of the operations of the Sudanese General Intelligence Service and retaining their weapons posed a threat to the revolution that overthrew ousted President Omar al-Bashir, according to military analysts, given the combat duties of these forces and the type of equipment they are armed with.

According to the security and strategic expert, Lieutenant General Hanafi Abdullah, Lieutenant General Abdullah Abdullah Qosh was one of the founders of these forces and numbered about 13,000 fighters.

Abdullah indicates - in a statement to Al-Jazeera Net - that these forces were established in the end of the nineties to support and support the army in the military operations in southern Sudan, but during 2003 and 2004 their number was increased and armed to secure oil fields, guard the borders and combat human trafficking.

He adds that these forces have armored vehicles, not armored vehicles, and are well trained in heavy weapons, but these weapons are supposed to be in storage.

Hanafi does not tend to characterize the operations of the elements of the Operations Authority as a rebellion, as it is merely a congestion because of financial dues for the end of service and demobilization of these elements.

Coordinated insurgency
However, Lieutenant Colonel Muhammad Khalil Al-Saim stressed that what took place was a "coordinated insurgency" that went beyond the issue of financial dues due to the movement of the members of the Operations Authority forces in three locations in the capital Khartoum and the city of Al-Abyad in the state of North Kordofan.

The headquarters of the Operations Authority in Al-Ubayyid is the second largest headquarters of these forces outside the capital, Khartoum.

Earlier today, the Security Committee of North Kordofan State, headed by the state's military governor, met with representatives of the Operations Authority and "their rebellion was successfully contained."

The fasting person believes that the operations of the elements of the Operations Authority fall under the attempts of the former regime to return again through the chaos scenario to thwart the revolution government.

He says, "The solution is to dissolve the security apparatus in the college," given his ideological affiliation with the defunct regime, because what the members of the operations committee did was a rebellion against power and that would not happen during the rule of the ousted Bashir, explaining that there was no need at all to form these forces.

The Undersecretary of the Ministry of Culture and Information, Saeed Yaqoub, described what happened as a "serious matter", stressing that what happened requires a speedy and transparent investigation because the movement was coordinated in several locations in Khartoum along with another move in a city outside the capital.

Since this afternoon, Khartoum has lived through difficult moments, when the operations staff exchanged fire with the army and rapid support forces that were planning to take over their headquarters.

As of this evening, military forces are still surrounding the headquarters of the Operations Authority in the Riyadh neighborhood, east of central Khartoum, along with other headquarters in Soba and Kfoury, and the sounds of bullets are still being heard clearly.

The undersecretary denies that there is a contradiction between the statement of the government spokesman, Faisal Muhammad Salih, who described the incident as a rebellion, and the statement of the General Intelligence Service, which described the matter as "just an objection" to the end-of-service reward, saying that the last statement was drafted early.

Although the minister and the undersecretary denied that there were injuries among civilians and the regular forces, the Sudan Doctors ’Committee confirmed by indicating that one of the civilians was shot and wounded.

Negotiating the protesters
However, the military expert, Muhammad Khalil Al-Saim, criticized the issuance of the security apparatus statement without coordination with the government, and considered the matter to be exceeded, and preferred to contain the situation away from any military confrontations that would be costly inside Khartoum.

According to a source in the General Intelligence Service, the director of the agency, Lieutenant General Abu Bakr Demblab, is leading negotiations with the rebel elements, who are estimated to number about three thousand fighters, to contain the situation peacefully.

For his part, the Undersecretary of the Ministry of Culture and Information confirmed this information, refusing to describe the matter as "negotiations" but rather as "contacts".

Security expert Hanafi Abdullah says that the options for the operations authority should be urgently resolved, by either absorbing them into the army and rapid support forces or laying them off while providing rewarding end-of-service benefits.

The transitional constitutional document stipulated that the security apparatus, which had wide influence in the previous regime and that possessed combat forces and the arresting authority, was restricted to its role in gathering and analyzing information to present it to the government.