TRENDS Study Explores the Attempts by the Muslim Brotherhood Group to Return to the Political Space in Sudan through Igniting the Current War.

A study by TRENDS Research and Advisory stressed that the Muslim Brotherhood group is seeking to engineer a coup against the current authority in Sudan represented by the Sovereign Council, but in a different way from the one it staged in 1989. The group plot is based on igniting the war and creating the conducive setting for its continuation. The Brotherhood operates through a plethora of Islamist currents and organizations. It tends to use the momentum of their presence to encourage them to achieve the group's grand design of seizing and retaining political power. Although the Muslim Brotherhood group have exhausted the three stages that organization went through in Sudan, it is still trying hard to reinvent itself.

The study, entitled "The Muslim Brotherhood of Sudan: from Organization to Theorizing and the Ultimate Downfall" was released as part of the TRENDS’ research program on international security, terrorism and political Islam studies. It indicated that the Muslim Brotherhood group in Sudan went through three main stages; the most important of which was the organizational stage in the 1940s. This was followed by a phase of intensive theorization, in which the late Dr. Hassan Al-Turabi led the Islamic movement of Sudan, a camouflage banner for the Brotherhood. In fact, the Muslim brotherhood was the backbone of this movement and its main engine of growth. This stage culminated into the recent fall of the movement after the popular uprising that toppled the military regime of Omar al-Bashir, who led the 1989 Coup. Analysts and some researchers believe that the December revolution of 2019 was not just the fall of the incumbent political system, rather, it represented the fall of the Muslim Brotherhood project specifically. Here they emphasize the importance of the peaceful revolution that overthrew the Brotherhood’s grand project in Sudan and Beyond.

The study was prepared by Mounir Adeeb, a researcher specialized in the affairs of extremist movements and international terrorism. The author exposed the organizational structure of the Muslim Brotherhood in Sudan since its inception. He explored the dynamics of the group’s presence and strength from two angles: first, its ability to seize power in 1989 and its clear role in instigating the ongoing war in 2023.

The study explored the dimensions of the Islamist rule and its dire consequences for the Sudan and its impact on the memory of the Sudanese people. It focused on the repercussions which led to two disruptive wars, one civil war in Darfur region in 2003 and the current fighting between the two major military powers in Sudan. Some analysis assumes that the Brotherhood led the campaign and laid the ground for turning the dispute into a full-fledged civil war.

The study monitored the active attempts by the Brotherhood to return to the potential political space if the war comes to the group’s favorable end. The Author sees this possibility becoming a reality in light of the escape of the group’s senior leaders from prisons and the ensuing weakness of the state structure and formal institutions.