Sudan’s army leader Abdel Fattah Burhan appointed diplomat Dafallah Al-Hajj Ali as acting prime minister on Wednesday, weeks after the army’s recapture of Khartoum.
Burhan, chairman of Sudan’s transitional sovereign council, also approved the appointment of Omar Seddik, a current ambassador, as foreign minister, a council statement said.
In March, the Sudanese army drove Rapid Support Forces militia from most of Khartoum after two years of devastating conflict that split the country into rival zones of control. The RSF is still deeply embedded in western Sudan.
The war erupted in April 2023 over disputes about the integration of the two forces after they worked together to oust civilians with whom they had shared power after the uprising that toppled autocrat Omar Al-Bashir.
In February, Burhan said there would be changes to the country’s interim constitution, which military sources said would remove all references to partnership with civilians or the RSF, placing authority solely with the army which would appoint a technocratic prime minister who would then appoint a cabinet.
Sudan’s army leader Burhan appoints an acting prime minister, statement says
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Sudan’s army leader Burhan appoints an acting prime minister, statement says
- Dafallah Al-Hajj Ali appointed on Wednesday as acting prime minister
Iran temporarily closes airspace to most flights
WASHINGTON: Iran temporarily closed its airspace to all flights except international ones to and from Iran with official permission at 5:15 p.m. ET on Wednesday, according to a notice posted on the Federal Aviation Administration’s website.
The prohibition is set to last for more than two hours until 7:30 p.m. ET, or 0030 GMT, but could be extended, the notice said. The United States was withdrawing some personnel from bases in the Middle East, a US official said on Wednesday, after a senior Iranian official said Tehran had warned neighbors it would hit American bases if Washington strikes.
Missile and drone barrages in a growing number of conflict zones represent a high risk to airline traffic. India’s largest airline, IndiGo said some of its international flights would be impacted by Iran’s sudden airspace closure. A flight by Russia’s Aeroflot bound for Tehran returned to Moscow after the closure, according to tracking data from Flightradar24.
Earlier on Wednesday, Germany issued a new directive cautioning the country’s airlines from entering Iranian airspace, shortly after Lufthansa rejigged its flight operations across the Middle East amid escalating tensions in the region.
The United States already prohibits all US commercial flights from overflying Iran and there are no direct flights between the countries. Airline operators like flydubai and Turkish Airlines have canceled multiple flights to Iran in the past week. “Several airlines have already reduced or suspended services, and most carriers are avoiding Iranian airspace,” said Safe Airspace, a website run by OPSGROUP, a membership-based organization that shares flight risk information.
“The situation may signal further security or military activity, including the risk of missile launches or heightened air defense, increasing the risk of misidentification of civil traffic.” Lufthansa said on Wednesday that it would bypass Iranian and Iraqi airspace until further notice while it would only operate day flights to Tel Aviv and Amman from Wednesday until Monday next week so that crew would not have to stay overnight.
Some flights could also be canceled as a result of these actions, it added in a statement. Italian carrier ITA Airways, in which Lufthansa Group is now a major shareholder, said that it would similarly suspend night flights to Tel Aviv until Tuesday next week.
