On the night of April 10, Sudan's feared spymaster, Salah Gosh, visited Pre...
KHARTOUM - On the night of April 10, Sudan’s feared spymaster, Salah Gosh, visited President Omar Hassan al-Bashir in his palace to reassure the leader that mass protests posed no threat to his rule.
His mind at ease, Bashir went to bed. When he woke, four hours later, it was to the realization that Gosh had betrayed him. His palace guards were gone, replaced by regular soldiers. His 30-year rule was at an end. Reuters interviewed a dozen sources with direct knowledge of events leading up to the coup to piece together how Bashir finally lost his grip on power. These sources, including a former government minister, a member of Bashir’s inner circle and a coup plotter, portrayed a leader who was skilled at manipulating and controlling rival Islamist and military factions in Sudan, but increasingly isolated in a changing Middle East.
“There is no doubt it is a sensitive period after years of Bashir’s dictatorship and Muslim Brotherhood,” Gargash went on, referring to Bashir’s Islamist allies in Sudan.Relations between Bashir and the UAE were still warm in February 2017, when Bashir visited Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed in Abu Dhabi. Some 14,000 Sudanese troops were fighting in Yemen as part of a Saudi and UAE-led military coalition against Iranian-aligned rebels.
In Sudan, the influence of Islamists was more deeply entrenched than in Egypt, and stretched back decades. Bashir seized power in 1989 as the head of an Islamist junta. Now Islamists controlled the military, intelligence services and key ministries. According to the senior government official, Bashir and MbZ reached “an understanding” that Bashir would root out Islamists and, in return, the UAE would provide Sudan with financial support. Bashir didn’t indicate how he planned to do this.
“He was the man who had a magic hold on Bashir’s mind,” said Ghamar Habani, a senior official in Bashir’s National Congress Party. “The issue of Taha left a big scar on Bashir,” said Habani, the senior member of Bashir’s National Congress Party.In the summer of 2017, a diplomatic crisis exploded among Gulf Arab states. The UAE and Saudi Arabia severed relations with Qatar, angered by its continuing support for the Muslim Brotherhood. The rift put Bashir in a difficult position. Qatar, like the UAE, had provided billions of dollars of financial aid to Sudan’s impoverished economy.
In February 2019, Bashir appeared to seal his fate at a meeting of Sudan’s Shura Council, composed of the country’s top leaders. By now protests at soaring bread prices were raging across the country. Bashir declared: “We are Islamists and proud to be Islamists.” Gosh told the prisoners he had come from Abu Dhabi, with a promise from the UAE of fuel and other economic aid. He wanted the prisoners to support an outline plan for a new political system in Sudan. A source close to Gosh confirmed the conversation.
When protesters set up camp outside the Defense Ministry, not far from Bashir’s residence, on April 6, Gosh’s National Intelligence and Security Service did nothing to stop them. “That’s when we realized the army was taking over,” said Habani, the senior member of Bashir’s National Congress Party.
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