The Islamist publication The Middle East Monitor has reported that the Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood has called on the Sudanese Army to “impose security” on a rebellious area of Sudan. According to a Middle East Monitor report:
04 May 2013 The political fallout from an attack by the Sudanese Revolutionary Forces 300 miles from the capital Khartoum is increasing. The attack on Umm Ruwaba took place last Saturday.
Several political factions in Sudan have expressed their anger at the apparent inaction of the Sudanese army in the face of the attack. This, they claim, has enabled the SRF militias, an alliance of four rebel groups, to reach as far as the centre of the state of North Kordofan in one of their boldest strikes in years.
Many Arabic and international institutions denounced the attack, which they said threatens the peaceful settlement in the South and West of the country. The Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood called for Sudan’s official army to use all its resources to impose security on the region and protect Sudanese citizens.
The Brotherhood insisted on the importance of speeding-up the national dialogue that will lead the country out of the current bleak situation. It accused regional and international parties of being involved in pushing Sudan towards the brink of serious internal conflict.”
Read the rest here.
However, on May 7, the independent Arabic news portal Al-Mogaz reported the same news quite differently. According to a translated summary from the Arabic obtained by the Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Watch, Al-Mogaz reported that the Muslim Brotherhood in (North) Sudan are asking for permission to wage jihad to protect the country and its citizens from the Sudan Revolutionary Front (SRF) — “rebels and enemies of religion and Islam” — who “scare the citizens and kill the innocents” in the districts of North and South Kordofan (aka Kurdufan). It should be noted that South Kordofan is the only oil-producing district of (North) Sudan, and this is one of the reasons for the ongoing civil war there. The SRF is an alliance of several rebel groups who are fighting for a national, secular and democratic Sudan and oppose the Islamist government of President Omar Al-Bashir. According to the authoritative London-based political newsletter Africa Confidential, the alliance is overwhelmingly Muslim; most of the fighting among the member groups in Kordofan is conducted by Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N). The SPLM-N is overwhelmingly Muslim, and nearly all its senior officials are Muslim. According to the SPLM website, the group “believes that Sudan’s salvation lies in the solution of both the ‘national groups’ and religious questions within the context of a united, democratic and secular Sudan…”
According to a translation by BBC Monitoring dated May 11, the privately-owned paper Al-Ra’y al-Amm, which supports the ruling party — reported that Sudanese Imams were asked to urge the public to wage jihad against rebels; speakers at the meeting of the higher committee for mobilization in the Khartoum locality asked Imams to enlighten the public on the consequences of SRF attacks on the towns and villages in North and South Kordofan
Waging jihad against fellow Muslims is an action usually taken by the most extremist takfiri jihadi groups. Such actions are strongly rejected by Muslim Brotherhood leaders, and in particular by Global Muslim Brotherhood leader Youssef Qaradawi. The declaration by the Muslim Brotherhood in (North) Sudan is therefore very significant, and places the Sudanese MB at one with jihadi takfiri groups. This is not the first time that the Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood has puts itself in this position. In the 1990s, the MB-affiliated National Islamic Front government also called for jihad against the people of the Nuba Mountains in South Kordofan, of whom probably a majority are Muslim, the remainder being Christian or following traditional faiths. The regime painted the word Jihad in huge letters on the side of one of the mountains next to the capital, Kadugli.
In January 2011, the Muslim Brotherhood of Sudan called on Arab and Islamic nations to “save Sudan from the US-Israeli schemes to divide it.”
In February 2010, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood reported that the Muslim Brotherhood in Sudan was backing the current President Omar Al-Bashir, who has been charged with war crimes by the international criminal court over the Darfur conflict and the first sitting head of state issued with an arrest warrant.