By: Kamal Krory
A potential involvement of a Sudanese armed group widely associated to “Daesh”, in last week’s attack attempt against Abdullah Hamdok, former Prime Minister and the leader of the Sudanese Coordination of Civil Democratic Forces (Taggadum), highlighted the potential threat the Islamic violent extremists continue to pose globally.
The sequences of the incident spurred fears of a potential duplication of the September 11.
After a gathering held in a hall near Chatham House in London on October 30, some Sudanese migrants in UK and other European countries tried to attack Hamdok and his entourage who were there to call for an end to the war in their country.
Few minutes later, Almisbah Talha, commander of “Al Baraa” battalion, congratulated, via a video call message, some of his followers who took part in the attack.
Al Baraa is one of the most dangerous armed wings of the Muslim Brotherhood Group and is widely associated with “Daash”.
Al Baraa congratulatory message should not be considered far from the complicated terrorism environment and the historical linkages between al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden’s ideas that led to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, which led to mass death, destruction and injury in New York.
Al-Baraa, which is fighting alongside the army, is one of the most organized and well trained armed groups of the Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood Grouping. It was created towards the end of Bin Laden presence in the Sudan, and influenced by his Terror ideas.
Two years after its coup, the Muslim Brotherhood regime hosted bin Laden and a number of terrorist organizations’ leaders, and provided them with the material, training and logistic support that laid the ground for the subsequent global attacks, including the bombings of the 1998 U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salam, East Africa, the 2000 USS Cole attack in Yemen and the 11 September attack in New York.
According to New York District Court, Sudan bears the responsibility for the Attacks because “Sudanese government officials, employees, and agents directly and knowingly provided critical support to al Qaeda in the years leading up to the Attacks”.
In this environment, Al -Baraa battalion was created and prepared.
Years after the death of Bin Laden, the battalion showed its adherence for al Qaeda ideas.
There are solid evidences supporting belief about the affiliation of the organizational link between global terrorist groups and Al-Baraa battalion.
The organizational affiliation between Al-Baraa battalion and the global terrorist groups include both the historical background of the battalion’s establishment and the direct links between some of its leaders to Daesh and other similar organizations.
In fact, Al-Baraa Battalion is one of the most prepared, trained and armed militias of the Muslim Brotherhood organization. The battalion consists of youth groups ranging, aged 20 to 35 years, and most them affiliated to student organisations controlled by Student Security Force umbrella.
During the rule of the Muslim Brotherhood regime, which continued from June 1989 until its overthrown in April 2019, Al Baraa battalion enjoyed high privileges. The arrival of Osama bin Laden’s into Sudan in 1991 increased the influence of the Sudanese armed groups affiliated to the Muslim Brotherhood organization and opened the door for them to establish close links with global extremist groups.
In a video clip published in September 2023, a member of Al Baraa disclosed that Al-Musbah Talha, was appointed as a leader of the battalion in 2012, when his predecessor, “Abu Musab al-Jaali” traveled to Syria to join Daesh fighters.
In 2012, Syrian representative to the UN submitted a list of 142 jihadists from Arab and Islamic countries who had been involved in military operations in the conflict in his country, including some who have a relation with Al Baraa Battalion, such as Abdul Rahman Ibrahim, who was killed in Aleppo on September 11, 2012, and “Abu Shurahbeel al-Sudani,” who was also injured in Aleppo.
AL Baraa was also linked to elements that formerly convicted of major terrorist acts, such as Abdul Raouf Abu Zeid, who was convicted of killing the American diplomat, John Granville, in Khartoum in 2008, and who was freed after Burhan’s coup in October 2021. Few Months after the outbreak of the war a media platform published photos showing Abu Zeid branding his gun along with a group of Al Baraa fighters in Omdurman city, west of downtown Khartoum.
Some reports stated that Al-Baraa battalion agents facilitated the entry of many East African terrorists after the outbreak of the war.
London attack came in the midst of huge divisions about the raging war in which Al-Baraa battalion played a leading role.
During the first days of the war, a security group affiliated with Al-Baraa Battalion, had set free a number of convicted criminals and extremists along with Muslim Brotherhood elements, including 28 members of the security apparatus who were sentenced to death, few months before Al-Burhan coup in 2021. They were convicted of killing a teacher in a brutal manner while in the custody of the security apparatus’ detention centers during the popular protests that resulted in the overthrow of the Muslim Brotherhood regime, 2019.
As such the battalion is suspected to have a link with the attempts that aimed to facilitate the exit of many extremists and criminals to use them in its local and global operations. Some of those elements, appeared in pictures and videos footage of persons involved in the London attack.
One of the demonstrators who appeared in the video call by Al Baraa commander was a person believed to be freed by the battalion fighters from a prison in Khartoum after the outbreak of the war, and thereafter he found his way to UK.
The investigations of 11 September terrorist attack carried out in New York, found that the seeds of jihad,” led to the attack brought out to the United State by individuals who adhered to al-Qaida founder Osama Bin Laden teaching that served as the foundation of Al Baraa battalion, among other Sudanese Islamic battalions, established during Bin laden era.
Nineteen months of brutal civil war have now plunged Sudan into the kind of chaos paving the ground for terrorist groups to prepare for a repeat of the “11/9” terror attack.
