CAIRO: Sudanese authorities released two outspoken former government officials from prison, lawyers said Wednesday, part of trust-building measures amid efforts to end the country’s political impasse.
Sudan was plunged into turmoil after an October military coup upended its short-lived transition to democracy after three decades of repressive rule by former strongman Omar Al-Bashir. Al-Bashir and his Islamist-backed government were removed in a popular uprising in April 2019.
Khalid Omar, a former minster of Cabinet affairs, was released late Tuesday and Mohammed Al-Faki Suliman, a former member of the ruling Sovereign Council, walked free from a prison in the capital of Khartoum on Wednesday, their defense team said.
The Criminal Court in northern Khartoum rejected prosecutors’ request to renew their detention pending investigations into an array of vague charges, including betrayal of the public trust, according to their lawyers.
Both Omar and Suliman had been detained along with dozens of other officials during the Oct. 25 coup and were released a month later as part of a deal between the military and Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok. The premier resigned in January after failing to bridge the gap between the generals and the protest movement.
The two men were rearrested in February amid a crackdown by the generals on anti-coup groups. Dozens of activists were also detained amid relentless protests against the military’s takeover.
The crackdown on protesters killed more than 90 people, mostly young men, and injured thousands, according to a Sudanese medical group.
Suliman was also deputy head of a government-run agency tasked with dismantling the legacy of former autocratic President Omar Al-Bashir’s regime. The agency is known as The Committee to Dismantle the Regime of June 30, 1989, in reference to the Islamist-backed military coup that brought Al-Bashir to power. It was created after the uprising and for two years worked to purge Al-Bashir’s loyalists from government institutions.
The generals, including coup leader Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, have long criticized the work of the agency. It was dismantled after the coup and the generals appointed another committee to review its decisions. Many of the agency’s decision were reversed, measures seen by critics of the military as a way to enable Islamists allied with the generals.
Other members of The Committee to Dismantle the Regime of June 30, 1989, including Wagdi Saleh, Taha Osman and Babiker Faisal were also released Wednesday, their defense team said.
Earlier this month, authorities freed over two dozen activists who were detained in recent weeks over the anti-coup protests.
The military’s takeover has plunged the country into turmoil and sent its already fragile economy into free fall, with living conditions rapidly deteriorating.
The UN envoy for Sudan, Volker Perthes, warned in March that Sudan was heading for “an economic and security collapse” unless it addresses the political paralysis. Perthes’ comments to the UN Security Council angered the generals and Burhan threatened to expel him.
Perthes is now leading joint efforts with the African Union and the eight-nation east African regional group called the Intergovernmental Authority in Development to facilitate Sudanese-led political talks. Perthes and the two organizations’ envoys held a joint news conference Wednesday in Khartoum on their efforts.
Ismael Wais, IGAD special envoy to Sudan, welcomed the releases as a “very positive development.” He urged authorities to free all political prisoners and activists and lift the state of emergency as a necessary condition to help facilitate reaching an agreement on a way out of the crisis.
Mohamed Al Hacen Ould Lebatt, the AU’s envoy for Sudan, said the group will launch a political dialogue after the Islamic holiday of Eid Al-Fitr, which marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan early in May.
He said the talks will include the military and other political parties and groups except Al-Bashir’s now dissolved Congress Party, with the aim of agreeing on how the country will be ruled during the rest of transitional period and holding elections.
“The situation in this country is highly sensitive if it is not extremely dangerous,” Lebatt said, adding that the talks eventually aim at “achieving the aspiration of the Sudanese people expressed in their revolution.”
There was no immediate comment from the two main protest groups, the Sudanese Professionals Association and the Resistance Committees, which have spearheaded the uprising against Al-Bashir and the ongoing anti-coup protests. They have long demanded the removal of the military from power and the establishment of a fully civilian government.
The generals, however, have said they will only hand over power to an elected administration. They say elections will take place in July 2023, as planned in a constitutional document governing the transitional period.
Sudan frees ex-officials in effort to end political impasse
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Sudan frees ex-officials in effort to end political impasse
- Khalid Omar, a former minster, was released late Tuesday and Mohammed al-Faki Suliman, a former member of the ruling Sovereign Council, walked free from a Khartoum prison on Wednesday
- The crackdown on protesters killed more than 90 people
’Utmost importance’ for Israel, Lebanon to restore calm: US
“Restoring calm along that border remains a top priority for President Biden and for the administration and it has to be of utmost importance, we believe, as well for both Lebanon and Israel,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters.
UN ‘deeply disturbed’ by strikes on Lebanon rescue workers
- “Up to 11 civilians were killed in a single day, including 10 paramedics,” said Imran Riza, the UN’s humanitarian coordinator for Lebanon
- “Attacks on health care violate international humanitarian law and are unacceptable”
BEIRUT: The United Nations on Thursday said it was “deeply disturbed” by attacks on health care facilities, a day after several strikes blamed on Israel killed 10 emergency rescue workers in southern Lebanon.
“The tragic events of the past 36 hours have resulted in a significant loss of life and injuries in south Lebanon. Up to 11 civilians were killed in a single day, including 10 paramedics,” said Imran Riza, the UN’s humanitarian coordinator for Lebanon.
There has been near-daily cross-border fire between Lebanon’s Hezbollah, an ally of Palestinian militant group Hamas, and Israel since Hamas gunmen launched an unprecedented attack on southern Israel on October 7, triggering war in Gaza.
Lebanese groups say three separate Israeli strikes on Wednesday, including on a health center in the border village of Habariyeh, killed the 11 civilians.
“I am deeply disturbed by the repeated attacks on health facilities and health workers who risk their lives to provide urgent assistance to their local communities,” Riza added.
“Attacks on health care violate international humanitarian law and are unacceptable,” the UN official said in a statement.
Several militant groups in Lebanon operate health centers and emergency response operations.
Hezbollah said four of its fighters and two rescuers were killed in Wednesday’s strikes, while its ally the Amal movement said it had lost two members, including a rescuer.
An official from the Jamaa Islamiya militant group had earlier told AFP that “seven rescuers” were killed in Israeli strikes on the emergency center in Habariyeh.
The Israeli military said the target of one of the strikes was “a military compound” and those killed were Jamaa Islamiya militants.
It said a “significant terrorist operative” and other members of the group were planning attacks against Israel at the time of the strike.
Hezbollah responded to the deadly strikes by sending a barrage of rockets into northern Israel, killing one civilian in Kiryat Shmona on Wednesday.
The group on Thursday said they targeted the northern Israeli town of Shlomi and agricultural village of Goren in retaliation for the previous day’s attacks.
The uptick in violence has raised fears of a broader escalation in the conflict.
At least 346 people have been killed in Lebanon — mostly Hezbollah fighters, but also including at least 68 civilians — in clashes with Israel over the last six months, according to an AFP tally.
The fighting has also displaced tens of thousands of people in southern Lebanon and in northern Israel, where the military says 10 soldiers and eight civilians have been killed.
Nine people die in crash during Iran holiday season
- Police say 585 people have died on the roads since the start of a holiday season
- The latest accident in Semnan province saw two vehicles crash and catch fire
TEHRAN: Nine people were killed in a car crash in northeastern Iran on Thursday, the worst single accident since the start of the Persian new year holiday, state media reported.
Police say 585 people have died on the roads since the start of a holiday season that runs from 19 March to 1 April, and sees many Iranians travel to visit family.
The latest accident in Semnan province east of the capital Tehran saw two vehicles crash and catch fire, reported IRNA state news agency quoting the emergency services.
IRNA reported that the death toll for the holiday season last year was 1,217.
The high number of deaths has been blamed on the poor condition of parts of the road network, careless driving and the low quality of the vehicles.
A police official in 2022 accused local car makers of delivering “unsafe” vehicles to the public while charging them the same price as foreign companies.
Several overseas car firms quit Iran in 2018 after the US reimposed sanctions over the country’s nuclear program.
Palestinian Authority announces a new Cabinet as it faces calls for reform
- Interior Minister Ziad Hab Al-Rih is a member of Abbas’ secular Fatah movement and held the same portfolio in the previous government
- At least five of the incoming 23 ministers are from Gaza, but it was not immediately clear if they are still in the territory
RAMALLAH, West Bank: The Palestinian Authority has announced the formation of a new Cabinet as it faces international pressure to reform.
President Mahmoud Abbas, who has led the PA for nearly two decades and remains in overall control, announced the new government in a presidential decree on Thursday. None of the incoming ministers is a well-known figure.
Abbas tapped Mohammad Mustafa, a longtime adviser, to be prime minister earlier this month. Mustafa, a politically independent US-educated economist, had vowed to form a technocratic government and create an independent trust fund to help rebuild Gaza. Mustafa will also serve as foreign minister.
Interior Minister Ziad Hab Al-Rih is a member of Abbas’ secular Fatah movement and held the same portfolio in the previous government. The Interior Ministry oversees the security forces. The incoming minister for Jerusalem affairs, Ashraf Al-Awar, registered to run as a Fatah candidate in elections in 2021 that were indefinitely delayed.
At least five of the incoming 23 ministers are from Gaza, but it was not immediately clear if they are still in the territory.
The PA administers parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Its forces were driven from Gaza when Hamas seized power in 2007, and it has no power there.
It has little popular support or legitimacy among Palestinians, in part because it has not held elections in 18 years. Its policy of cooperating with Israel on security matters is extremely unpopular and has led many Palestinians to view it as a subcontractor of the occupation.
Opinion polls in recent years have consistently found that a vast majority of Palestinians want the 88-year-old Abbas to resign.
The United States has called for a revitalized PA to administer postwar Gaza ahead of eventual statehood.
Israel has rejected that idea, saying it will maintain open-ended security control over Gaza and partner with Palestinians who are not affiliated with the PA or Hamas. It’s unclear who in Gaza would be willing to take on such a role.
Hamas has rejected the formation of the new government as illegitimate, calling instead for all Palestinian factions, including Fatah, to form a power-sharing government ahead of national elections.
It has warned Palestinians in Gaza against cooperating with Israel to administer the territory, saying anyone who does will be treated as a collaborator, which is understood as a death threat.
Jamaa Islamiya, Lebanese militants allied to Hamas
- Several groups allied to Hamas have exchanged near-daily fire with Israeli forces along Lebanon’s southern border
- The groups say they are acting in solidarity with Hamas and Palestinians in the Gaza Strip
BEIRUT: Jamaa Islamiya has a much lower profile than other militant groups in Lebanon, but the escalation of strikes over the border with Israel is pushing it into the spotlight.
Formed in the 1960s, Jamaa Islamiya claims to have carried out operations with Palestinian militant group Hamas in southern Lebanon and said seven affiliated rescuers were killed in an overnight Israeli strike.
Several groups allied to Hamas have exchanged near-daily fire with Israeli forces along Lebanon’s southern border since war erupted in the Gaza Strip following Hamas’s October 7 attacks on southern Israel.
The groups say they are acting in solidarity with Hamas and Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
Jamaa Islamiya has carried out “joint operations with Hamas” in Lebanon, according to an official from the small Sunni Muslim movement who requested anonymity as they were not authorized to speak to the media.
“All forces that operate in south Lebanon coordinate their actions,” Ali Abu Yassin, head of Jamaa Islamiya’s political bureau, told AFP.
As the group announced the death of the seven medics on Wednesday, the Israeli military said those killed were Jamaa Islamiya “terrorists.”
Mohanad Hage Ali, from the Carnegie Middle East Center, said Jamaa Islamiya was “operating as an extension of Hamas in Lebanon,” describing the two movements’ relationship as “organic.”
Over the weekend, a Jamaa Islamiya official reportedly survived an Israeli drone strike in eastern Lebanon and earlier this month the group said three of its fighters were killed in Lebanon’s south.
The official requesting anonymity said two Jamaa Islamiya members were serving as bodyguards to Hamas deputy leader Saleh Al-Aruri and were killed along with him in a January 2 strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs.
Hage Ali said Jamaa Islamiya had “around 500 armed men” but played only a “marginal political role” in Lebanon with just one lawmaker in the national parliament.
Jamaa Islamiya and Hamas both come from the same ideological school as the Muslim Brotherhood, a Sunni Islamist group with origins in Egypt, the official requesting anonymity said.
Jamaa Islamiya established its armed wing, the Fajr Forces, in 1982 to fight the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.
The official said the group stayed out of Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil war.
Relations with Hezbollah have seen ups and downs but improved recently, analyst Hage Ali said, particularly since Jamaa Islamiya elected a new leadership closer to Hamas in 2022.
But Hage Ali noted Jamaa Islamiya “is not subservient” to Hezbollah.
The two groups differ in particular over the Syrian conflict, with Hezbollah supporting Syrian President Bashar Assad since his 2011 repression of anti-government protests sparked war, unlike Hamas and Jamaa Islamiya.
Jamaa Islamiya political official Abu Yassin acknowledged his group had “differences of opinion with Hezbollah due to its participation in the Syrian war on the side of the regime.”
The Jamaa Islamiya official requesting anonymity said that though the groups differ over Syria, “today, we are in the same trench as Hezbollah on the Palestinian issue.”