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Iran’s Rulers Caught Between Trump’s Crackdown and a Fragile Economy 

Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei speaks during a meeting with Iranian students in Tehran, Iran, March 12, 2025. Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via Reuters
Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei speaks during a meeting with Iranian students in Tehran, Iran, March 12, 2025. Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via Reuters
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Iran’s Rulers Caught Between Trump’s Crackdown and a Fragile Economy 

Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei speaks during a meeting with Iranian students in Tehran, Iran, March 12, 2025. Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via Reuters
Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei speaks during a meeting with Iranian students in Tehran, Iran, March 12, 2025. Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via Reuters

For Iran's clerical leaders, engaging with the "Great Satan" to hammer out a nuclear deal and ease crippling sanctions may for once be the lesser of two evils.

Though it harbors deep mistrust of the United States, and President Donald Trump in particular, Tehran is increasingly concerned that mounting public anger over economic hardships could erupt into mass protests, four Iranian officials said.

That's why, despite the unyielding stance and defiant rhetoric of Iran's clerical leaders in public, there is a pragmatic willingness within Tehran's corridors of power to strike a deal with Washington, the people said.

Tehran's concerns were exacerbated by Trump's speedy revival of his first term's "maximum pressure" campaign to drive Iran's oil exports towards zero with more sanctions and bring the country's already fragile economy to its knees, they said.

President Masoud Pezeshkian has repeatedly highlighted the severity of the economic situation in the country, stating that it is more challenging than during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, and pointing this month to the latest round of US sanctions targeting tankers carrying Iranian oil.

One of the Iranian officials said leaders were concerned that cutting off all diplomatic avenues might further fuel domestic discontent against Ali Khamenei - given he is the ultimate decision maker in the country.

"There is no question whatsoever that the man who has been the Supreme Leader since 1989 and his foreign policy preferences are more guilty than anybody else for the state of affairs," said Alex Vatanka, director of the Iran Program at the Middle East Institute think-tank in Washington.

It was Iran's weak economy that pushed Khamenei to give tentative backing to the nuclear agreement struck with major powers in 2015, leading to a lifting of Western sanctions and an improvement in economic conditions. But then-President Trump's renewed onslaught against Iran after he pulled out of the nuclear pact in 2018 squeezed living standards once more.

"The situation worsens daily. I can't afford my rent, pay my bills, or buy clothes for my children," said Alireza Yousefi, 42, a teacher from Isfahan. "Now, more sanctions will make survival impossible."

Iran's foreign ministry did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.

'ON EQUAL TERMS'

At the same time as upping the pressure on Iran with new sanctions and threats of military action, Trump also opened the door to negotiations by sending a letter to Khamenei proposing nuclear talks.

Khamenei spurned the offer on Wednesday, saying repeatedly that Washington was imposing excessive demands and that Tehran would not be bullied into negotiations.

"If we enter negotiations while the other side is imposing maximum pressure, we will be negotiating from a weak position and will achieve nothing," Iran's top diplomat Abbas Araqchi told the Iran newspaper in an interview published on Thursday.

"The other side must be convinced that the policy of pressure is ineffective - only then can we sit at the negotiating table on equal terms," he said.

One senior Iranian official said there was no alternative but to reach an agreement, and that it was possible, though the road ahead would be bumpy given Iran's distrust of Trump after he abandoned the 2015 deal.

Iran has staved off economic collapse largely thanks to China, the main buyer of its oil and one of the few nations still trading with Tehran despite sanctions.

Oil exports slumped after Trump ditched the nuclear deal but have recovered in the past few years, bringing in more than $50 billion in revenue in both 2022 and 2023 as Iran found ways to skirt sanctions, according to US Energy Information Administration estimates.

Yet uncertainty looms over the sustainability of the exports as Trump's maximum pressure policy aims to throttle Iran's crude sales with multiple rounds of sanctions on tankers and entities involved in the trade.

PUBLIC ANGER SIMMERS

Iran's rulers are also facing a string of other crises - energy and water shortages, a collapsing currency, military setbacks among regional allies and growing fears of an Israeli strike on its nuclear facilities - all intensified by Trump's tough stance.

The energy and water sectors are suffering from a lack of investment in infrastructure, overconsumption driven by subsidies, declining natural gas production and inefficient irrigation, all leading to power blackouts and water shortages.

The Iranian rial has shed more than 90% of its value against the dollar since the sanctions were reimposed in 2018, according to foreign exchange websites, officials and lawmakers.

Amid concerns about Trump's tough approach, Iranians seeking safe havens for their savings have been buying dollars, other hard currencies, gold or cryptocurrencies, suggesting further weakness for the rial, according to state media reports.

The price of rice has soared 200% since last year, state media has reported. Housing and utility costs have spiked sharply, climbing roughly 60% in some Tehran districts and other major cities in recent months, driven by the rial's steep fall and soaring raw material costs, according to media reports.

Official inflation hovers around 40%, though some Iranian experts say it is running at over 50%. The Statistical Center of Iran reported a significant rise in food prices, with over a third of essential commodities increasing by 40% in January to leave them more than double the same month the previous year.

In January, the Tasnim news agency quoted the head of Iran's Institute of Labor and Social Welfare, Ebrahim Sadeghifar, as saying 22% to 27% of Iranians were now below the poverty line.

Iran's Jomhuri-ye Eslami newspaper, meanwhile, said last week that poverty rates stood at around 50%.

"I can barely cover the rent for my carpet shop or pay my workers' salaries. No one has the money to buy carpets. If this continues, I will have to lay off my staff," Morteza, 39, said by phone from Tehran's Grand Bazaar, giving only his first name.

"How do they expect to solve the economic crisis if they refuse to talk to Trump? Just talk to him and reach a deal. You cannot afford pride on an empty stomach."

NUCLEAR RED LINE

Based on Iranian state media reports, there were at least 216 demonstrations across Iran in February, involving retirees, workers, healthcare professionals, students and merchants. The protests largely focused on economic hardships, including low wages and months of unpaid salaries, according to the reports.

While the protests were mostly small-scale, officials fear a deterioration in living standards could be explosive.

"The country is like a powder keg, and further economic strain could be the spark that sets it off," said one of the four officials, who is close to the government.

Iran's ruling elite is acutely aware of the risk of a resurgence of the unrest similar to the 2022-2023 protests over Mahsa Amini's death in custody, or the nationwide protests in 2019 over fuel price rises, the officials said.

The senior Iranian official said there had been several high-level meetings to discuss the possibility of new mass protests - and potential measures to head them off.

Nevertheless, despite the worries about potential unrest, Iranian officials said Tehran was only prepared to go so far in any talks with Trump, stressing that "excessive demands", such as dismantling Iran's peaceful nuclear program or its conventional missile capabilities, were off the table.

"Yes, there are concerns about more economic pressure, there are concerns about the nation's growing anger, but we cannot sacrifice our right to produce nuclear energy because Trump wants it," the senior official said.

Ali Vaez, Iran project director at the International Crisis Group, said Iran's rulers believed that negotiating with Trump under coercion would signal weakness, ultimately attracting more pressure than reducing it.

"That is why Khamenei seems to believe that the only thing that is more dangerous than suffering from sanctions is surrendering to them," he said.

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El-Mahboub Abdul Salam to Asharq Al-Awsat: Al-Turabi Tasted the Betrayal of his Disciples, Foremost Among them Omar al-Bashir

Al-Bashir and al-Turabi (right) after the coup (AP)
Al-Bashir and al-Turabi (right) after the coup (AP)
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El-Mahboub Abdul Salam to Asharq Al-Awsat: Al-Turabi Tasted the Betrayal of his Disciples, Foremost Among them Omar al-Bashir

Al-Bashir and al-Turabi (right) after the coup (AP)
Al-Bashir and al-Turabi (right) after the coup (AP)

Dr. Hassan Abdullah al-Turabi once tasted a bitter truth: that a man’s own disciples may one day betray him. It is almost a law of political life that students eventually turn on their teachers.

Al-Turabi had chosen the young army officer Omar Hassan al-Bashir to lead Sudan, perhaps imagining that he could remain behind the curtain as the guiding hand, a spiritual mentor presiding over the state, as Ayatollah Khomeini had done in Iran. But generals have their own instincts. Power is a feast that tolerates no partners. Soon enough, al-Bashir rebelled, and the master who had raised him was cast aside.

In 2017, a year after al-Turabi’s death, I interviewed Omar al-Bashir on that complicated relationship. When asked who had been the hardest person to deal with in his political life, he immediately named al-Turabi. He described him as a man of “immense charisma,” one who had long dominated the Islamic Movement and triumphed in every internal battle, until his clash with al-Bashir himself, when, for the first time, he lost.

Al-Bashir’s rule was marked by constant shifts and contradictions, none more telling than his oscillating relationship with Iran. In 1992, Sudan was under suffocating sanctions, short of weapons and ammunition, and isolated after Iraq’s decline.

Desperate for aid, Finance Minister Abdul-Rahim Hamdi traveled to Tehran to request assistance. The Iranians, however, demanded that Sudan first repay the debts left by the Jaafar Nimeiri regime. They explained that their priority was to help the newly independent Shiite communities emerging from the collapse of the Soviet Union, and offered instead to send books and sports equipment. Khartoum’s delegation was stunned. When Hamdi recounted the story to al-Turabi, the latter laughed bitterly and said: “Haven’t you read The Book of Misers? Most of it is about the Persians.”

Iran’s stance changed years later. After 2003, it supported the Sudanese army in the war in Darfur, established husayniyyas (Shiite centers), converted a small number of Sudanese to Shiism, and sent hundreds of youths for training in Syria. Iranian engineers helped build military industries south of Khartoum, and weapons were smuggled through Port Sudan to Gaza for Hamas, via Egyptian tunnels. Israeli warplanes would later strike those factories, exposing the secret routes.

I once asked al-Bashir whether he could ever enjoy life as a “former president.” He smiled and said: “Not only would it be easy - it would be a pleasure. People will still call you ‘Your Excellency’ in the street, but you’ll have no responsibilities.” Experience teaches journalists not to take such remarks at face value; similar words are spoken by leaders who never truly imagine leaving office.

Al-Turabi himself seldom condemned other rulers. He counted Muammar Gaddafi among his friends, saying their meetings were always frank and candid. He also believed that Saddam Hussein had undergone a transformation after the first Gulf War, symbolized by adding the phrase Allahu Akbar to Iraq’s flag. Such reflections revealed a man who, despite his ideological fervor, viewed other strongmen as peers in power and survival.

Among those who knew both al-Turabi and al-Bashir closely was Dr. Al-Mahboub Abdul Salam, a Sudanese politician and thinker who lived through the rise and unraveling of their shared project. In his view, the Sudan of today - torn apart by war and bleeding from within - is the direct legacy of that turbulent era.

Abdul Salam said that many Sudanese now live with the haunting fear of becoming people without a homeland. “This is not just a feeling,” he observed. “It’s a psychological reality. Some Sudanese have already begun to rebuild their lives elsewhere. The war has touched everyone - it has destroyed homes, livelihoods, memories, and the very sense of belonging. No one has been spared.”

He noted that the blame for Sudan’s collapse lied with the country’s elites, those of both the left and the right. “The Marxists, the Islamists, and even the centrist politicians share responsibility,” he said. “The military and civilian elites are two faces of the same coin. Tayeb Salih once wrote that in Sudan, some officers wake up one morning and decide to seize power by driving a tank to the radio station. But many civilians have the same hunger for authority. They just wear different clothes.”

Abdul Salam argued that politics became, for many, “a profession for the unqualified.” True politics, he insisted, requires training, study, and deep knowledge of the country and the world. “If you are Sudanese, you must know every corner of Sudan, its regions, its people, its contradictions. But many who rushed into power came from nowhere, driven only by ambition.”

He added that both soldiers and civilians failed equally. “What Sudan suffers today is the meeting of two failures, military and civilian.”

Reflecting on his own past, Abdul Salam admits that even before the 1989 coup, he doubted that the Islamic Movement was ready to govern. “We had capable leaders, scholars, and administrators,” he said, “but a state is far larger than any movement can imagine. Had we let the movement mature within democracy instead of seizing power by force, Sudan’s story might have been different.”

There is no doubt in his mind that Hassan al-Turabi was the mastermind of the 1989 coup that brought al-Bashir to power. “He designed it from start to finish,” Abdul Salam said. Al-Turabi had met al-Bashir only once before the coup, two days before its launch. “Go to the palace as president,” he told the young officer, “and I will go to prison as a captive.” It was a deliberate act of deception meant to mislead Sudan’s political parties and foreign observers into thinking that al-Turabi was uninvolved. For a while, the ruse worked. Egypt and other neighbors welcomed the new regime, unaware of its Islamist core.

Al-Turabi justified his deceit as a wartime tactic. He often said that the world would never accept an Islamic regime, whether it came to power democratically or through a coup. Therefore, he considered the revolution a form of war, where deception was permissible. But the disguise did not last long. The Gulf War exposed Khartoum’s Islamist sympathies when it sided with Saddam Hussein, and Sudan found itself isolated, condemned by its neighbors and the world.

Sudan also became the most vivid example of the “Sheikh and the President” dynamic: a spiritual guide wielding hidden influence while the official ruler executed his will. Al-Turabi and al-Bashir shared an office called the “Leadership Bureau.” Formally, al-Turabi was head of the movement and al-Bashir one of its members. In reality, the former commanded ideological power while the latter held the guns. That dual authority could not endure.

The rupture came on December 12, 1999, when the famous Mufasala, the Great Split, tore the movement apart. For al-Turabi, it was a personal and moral betrayal. He believed they were united by a sacred project to transform history, and that conspiracies could never achieve such a mission. But his own disciples, both civilian and military, had conspired behind his back. The “Memorandum of Ten,” drafted by his opponents within the movement, marked the beginning of the end.

Abdul Salam believes that al-Bashir began to see al-Turabi as a burden as early as 1993, when the latter demanded that the Revolutionary Command Council be dissolved and that the officers return to their barracks. This was the first real collision between al-Turabi’s strategic vision and the generals’ lust for permanence. Yet external pressures - international isolation and domestic opposition - forced them to remain together for several more years. “They knew any split at that time would destroy the regime entirely,” Abdul Salam explained. “Besides, al-Turabi still commanded loyalty even within the military.”

Over time, however, the state’s intelligence services began spying on al-Turabi himself. “They claimed it was their duty,” Abdul Salam said, “but we objected. We believed he deserved independent protection - just as Western leaders have their own special security apart from intelligence agencies.”

Looking back on Sudan’s modern history, Abdul Salam described Jaafar Nimeiri as a charismatic but authoritarian ruler. “A strong leader, yes, but a dictator nonetheless.”

As for Sadiq al-Mahdi, the long-time leader of the National Umma Party, Abdul Salam described him as “deeply intelligent, highly charismatic, but born into an environment that sanctified leadership.” Al-Mahdi saw himself as destined to rule, yet lacked the decisiveness of a true statesman. “He was a thinker, a lecturer, a man of ideas - more suited to opposition and intellectual debate than to governance.”

Abdul Salam spent a decade as al-Turabi’s chief of staff, witnessing firsthand the man’s ambition and complexity. “He changed the face of Sudanese politics,” he said. “Before him, the political arena was divided between two religious sects - the Umma Party of Sadiq al-Mahdi and the Democratic Unionist Party of Muhammad Uthman al-Mirghani. Al-Turabi broke that monopoly. He became, in a sense, the ‘third saint’ of Sudanese politics.”

When al-Turabi joined Nimeiri’s government after seven years in prison, some were shocked. He used to smile and say: “We are Islamizing the system, step by step.” His goal, Abdul Salam explained, was to ensure that his movement could organize freely in society - among students, women, farmers, and professionals - while cooperating with power from within.

He even likened politics to a “game” governed by its own rules and fouls. Nimeiri tolerated him, believing the Islamists would never rule until long after his death. But during those years of so-called “national reconciliation,” the Islamist movement built its real foundations.

For al-Turabi, prison had been a university. He said he never suffered from solitude, reading hundreds of books and writing new theories of Islamic jurisprudence. “He read four hundred volumes on economics alone,” Abdul Salam recalled. “He used prison as others might use a library.”

Exposure to Western thought also shaped al-Turabi profoundly. Educated in Britain and France, he brought to the Islamist project a rare sophistication. “He produced the most advanced version of the Muslim Brotherhood’s ideology,” Abdul Salam remarked, “one that tried to engage modernity rather than reject it.” Yet that same intellect drove him to think in terms of long-term strategy. He divided the movement’s progress into stages: secrecy, preparation, empowerment, and eventual control of the state - by elections if possible, by revolution if necessary. From the 1960s onward, he had already imagined that a coup might one day be the vehicle.

Sudan’s October Revolution of 1964, which overthrew a military regime, had convinced many - including Communist leader Abdul Khaliq Mahjoub - that the army would never again seize power. But when Nimeiri did exactly that in 1969, the lesson was clear: the temptation of power never dies.

According to Abdul Salam, the relationship between Hassan al-Turabi and Sadiq al-Mahdi combined intimacy with rivalry. Both came from Islamic traditions and shared views on freedom, women’s rights, and economic openness. Early on, they appeared almost as one political family. Al-Mahdi, confident in his vast popular base, saw al-Turabi and other intellectuals as tools to modernize the Umma Party and assumed al-Turabi’s role would never exceed that of a minister. But al-Turabi’s ambitions were far greater: he sought to found his own movement, a third force in Sudanese politics. Had that partnership endured, Sudan might have gained a powerful current capable of bringing lasting stability.

Features

Palestinians Recount ‘Black Hole’ of Israeli Detention

An undated photo from 2023 provided by a whistleblower shows Palestinian prisoners captured in the Gaza Strip at the Sde Teiman detention facility. (AP)
An undated photo from 2023 provided by a whistleblower shows Palestinian prisoners captured in the Gaza Strip at the Sde Teiman detention facility. (AP)
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Palestinians Recount ‘Black Hole’ of Israeli Detention

An undated photo from 2023 provided by a whistleblower shows Palestinian prisoners captured in the Gaza Strip at the Sde Teiman detention facility. (AP)
An undated photo from 2023 provided by a whistleblower shows Palestinian prisoners captured in the Gaza Strip at the Sde Teiman detention facility. (AP)

Denied contact with his lawyer for months, now freed Palestinian prisoner Shady Abu Sedo said he lost all sense of time while he was held in Israeli jails during the war in Gaza.

The 35-year-old resident of the Palestinian territory was arrested in March 2024, five months into the war sparked by Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.

Abu Sedo, a photojournalist, said he was arrested while working at Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City and detained at Sde Teiman prison, a military facility in Israel used to hold Gazans during the war.

At the time of his arrest the Al-Shifa complex was at the center of the war, with humanitarian organizations accusing Israel of rights violations while Israel accused Hamas of using it and other civilian facilities as command centers.

Abu Sedo was held under Israel's "unlawful combatants" law, which permits the detention of suspected members of "hostile forces" for months on end without charge.

Abu Sedo said he was repeatedly confronted with claims from the Israelis that "they had killed our children, our women and bombed our homes".

"So, when I saw (my children), honestly, it was a shock," he told AFP by telephone after his release to Gaza on October 13 under the US-brokered ceasefire.

The truce, which came into effect on October 10, saw 20 living hostages returned by Hamas to Israel in exchange for approximately 2,000 Palestinian prisoners.

"Imagine, 100 days from five in the morning until 11 at night, sitting on your knees, handcuffed, blindfolded, forbidden to speak or talk," Abu Sedo said.

"You don't know the time, you don't know the days, you don't know where you are."

"After 100 days of torture, they took me for interrogation to confirm my identity. They tortured me without knowing who I was," he said, describing eye and ear injuries.

Then came a transfer to Ofer military prison in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where he said conditions were "beyond imagination".

During his incarceration, Abu Sedo was able to speak with his lawyer only twice.

He said he hadn't been charged and that his detention had been "automatically extended" without explanation.

The Israeli military declined to comment on his case.

The Israel prison service says all inmates "are held according to legal procedures, and their rights including access to medical care and adequate living conditions are upheld".

According to the Red Cross, the term "unlawful combatant" refers to someone who "belongs to an armed group, in a context where either the individual or the group do not fulfil the conditions for combatant status."

The term emerged in the United States after the September 11, 200 It was introduced into Israeli law in 2002 and denies protections typically granted to detainees and prisoners of war.

Israel then amended the law at the start of the Gaza war.

Under the revised legislation, prisoners can be detained for 45 days without administrative process, compared with 96 hours previously.

Prisoners can be held for 75 days without a court hearing, up from 14 days, and this can be extended to 180 days.

In July 2024, Amnesty International demanded the law be repealed.

It said the legislation served to "arbitrarily round up Palestinian civilians from Gaza and toss them into a virtual black hole for prolonged periods without producing any evidence that they pose a security threat". 1, attacks, when the administration of George W. Bush used it to justify the detention of terrorism suspects.

In late October, Israel issued an order banning the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) from visiting prisoners held as "unlawful combatants".

In practice, that will make law the status quo that has prevailed since the beginning of the war in Gaza.

The ICRC says it has not been allowed to visit detainees in jail since then, save for pre-release interviews conducted under ceasefire and prisoner exchange deals.

Several rights groups have denounced what they say is a form of incommunicado detention for Palestinian prisoners, hampering the legal defense of detainees.

Israel holds around 1,000 "unlawful combatants" in military and civilian prisons, according to several NGOs.

For these detainees, "the lawyer is their only connection to the outside world," said Naji Abbas of Physicians for Human Rights.

The rights group says that 18 doctors and dozens of other health professionals from Gaza are still languishing without charge in Israeli prisons.

"It takes months to get an appointment. We visit them but we have a lot of difficulties," said Abbas, adding that such visits often lasted less than half an hour.

Several NGOs have appealed to the Israeli Supreme Court to grant the Red Cross access to "unlawful combatants", but no date has been set for the decision.

Features

El-Mahboub Abdul Salam to Asharq Al-Awsat: Al-Turabi Viewed Carlos as a Poisonous Present from Jordan

Carlos' wanted photos as released by Interpol. (AFP)
Carlos' wanted photos as released by Interpol. (AFP)
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El-Mahboub Abdul Salam to Asharq Al-Awsat: Al-Turabi Viewed Carlos as a Poisonous Present from Jordan

Carlos' wanted photos as released by Interpol. (AFP)
Carlos' wanted photos as released by Interpol. (AFP)

An attractive foreigner once entered a store in Khartoum. The owner never once imagined who it could possibly be. The foreigner noticed the portrait of a senior military figure hanging on the wall. The lady explained that she was his widow and had he been alive, he would have been the president of Sudan.

Zeinab Mustafa was talking about her late husband El-Hadi al-Mamoun al-Mardi who established the Islamic movement in the army and served as a minister after the coup on June 30, 1989. He later died of an illness.

Zeinab did not realize the danger of the visitor and that international intelligence agencies were searching for him. France was seeking his arrest because back in 1975 he killed two members of its security force there and fled. The owner and the foreigner became more acquainted. He explained that he was in Sudan on an important political visit and wanted to meet President Omar al-Bashir or Dr. Hassan al-Turabi. He gave her a book by David Yallop called “Until The Ends of the Earth.” He requested that it be sent to al-Turabi's office.

Zeinab took the book and met with Dr. El-Mahboub Abdul Salam, head of al-Turabi's office. He sent the book to al-Turabi, who asked if Yallop was in Sudan. He replied, “No, it was Carlos.” He was shocked. It was none other than the Venezuelan Ilich Ramírez Sanchez, better known as Carlos the Jackal, who was guided by Palestinian plane hijacker mastermind Dr. Wadie Haddad to carry out the kidnapping of the OPEC ministers in Vienna in 1975.

Abdul Salam knows Carlos’ story in Sudan from start to finish. He was tasked with interpreting the discussions that took place between French and Sudanese intelligence that culminated in Carlos being turned over to France on August 15, 1994, where he now lies in prison.

A photo of Carlos seen in Sudan in 1994 and released by France during his trial. (AFP)

Throughout the 1980s, Carlos roamed all over eastern Europe to evade capture. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, eastern Europe was no longer an option. Baghdad was out of the question, so he landed in Syria, where Hafez al-Assad's regime used him for operations in France and Lebanon. He was later asked to leave the country as Assad sought to polish his image before the West.

Carlos then turned to Moammar al-Gaddafi in Libya. The leader eventually prioritized his relationship with Sabri al-Banna, also known as Abu Nidal, over the burdensome Carlos. Carlos turned to Jordan, which after a while turned him away, so he found himself seeking refuge in Sudan.

Following up on Carlos’ case is an exercise in patience. For two decades, French intelligence agent Philippe Rondot sought his arrest before he eventually succeeded. My profession has allowed me to interview al-Turabi and Carlos. The former told me that Carlos arrived in Sudan “from a country somewhere close to your part of the world” - meaning Jordan. Carlos told me that al-Turabi and Bashir had struck a deal with France for his arrest. Today, I am interviewing Abdul Salam to ask him about Carlos.

“I know all about Carlos’ story in Sudan because I was the interpreter for the Sudanese and French security agencies,” he told Asharq Al-Awsat. He had arrived in Sudan from Jordan in 1993. He entered through the airport using a southern Yemen passport and spent a year in Sudan.

“I had informed Rondot that the passport was fake, but he didn’t believe me, saying it was indeed issued by the Yemeni foreign ministry. Meanwhile, I insisted that Abdullah Barakat – the name on the passport – was not his real name. Sudan discovered that Carlos was on its soil. He indeed was a ‘poisonous gift’ from Jordan as al-Turabi once said. We spent nearly a year persuading him to leave Sudan,” recalled Abdul Salam.

Asked if he had ever met Carlos, he confirmed that he did twice in the final moments before he was flown out of the country.

Asked how come it had taken Sudanese agencies so long to realize that the infamous Carlos was in the country, Abdul Salam explained that his operations were connected to the Palestinians, so he was on the radar of countries that were involved with them, such as Jordan, Syria and Libya. Sudan was not, so he arrived in the country undetected.

Al-Turabi probably found out early on that Carlos was in Sudan, perhaps after his arrival, said Abdul Salam. “He visited our office and requested to meet al-Turabi. The guards at the door were not aware who he was,” he said. Ultimately, he never met with al-Turabi even after he realized that Carlos was in Sudan.

Abdul Salam could not confirm or deny whether Carlos met with Osama bin Laden while they were in Sudan, saying he did not have any information about the issue.

When I interviewed Carlos, he informed me that al-Turabi and Bashir “sold me out.” Abdul Salam said: “He believed that the Islamic regime in Sudan was the same as the one in Iran in that it was hostile to the West and that its leaders would be eager to meet with him and learn from his experience. The regime in Sudan was not like that.”

Carlos presented himself as a Muslim and he tried to offer his services to the regime, revealed Abdul Salam.

Turning to Rondot, Abdul Salam described him as an “extraordinary” man. “It is said that he was born in Tunisia. He was of the ‘black feet’ (pieds-noirs) French colonizers in north Africa. He would occasionally visit during Ramadan and fast the entire month even though he was not Muslim. He once told me that he had spent 30 years on missions. He held a doctorate in sociology and his father was a major sociologist. He had close ties to the Muslim and Arab worlds. He had ties with all Arab intelligence.”

Rondot described Iraqi intelligence as being derived from ideas, while Algerian intelligence only saw what it wanted to see, meaning it was subjective, said Abdul Salam.

Rondot spent some 20 years pursuing Carlos. Abdul Salam told Asharq Al-Awsat that the process to turn over Carlos to France started around four months after he arrived in Sudan, which was in August 1993. “In October, Rondot came to Khartoum following a visit by Sudan’s chief of intelligence to France. Negotiations over Carlos took a long time.”

On how come he was chosen to act as interpreter, Abdul Salam said Sudanese intelligence does boast French speakers, but they wanted to keep the number of people involved in the case limited. Al-Turabi was aware of it and made sure that Sudan respected its agreements with Interpol regarding the arrest of wanted people.

At one point, recalled Abdul Salam, discussions were made over the possibility of returning Carlos to Jordan. Sudan was under international sanctions, and it was best that Carlos be returned to the country he came from. France contacted Jordanian authorities to that end, but they turned down its request.

Asked if Sudanese intelligence had questioned Carlos, Abdul Salam responded: “He was fully aware that the operations that he carried out in the 1970s and 80s were no longer possible. All efforts were focused on how to get him out of Sudan.”

“He was a burdensome guest. Some guests are difficult, but none more so than Carlos who captured the world’s attention and was wanted by a major power like France,” said Abdul Salam. “Several offers were made to him to leave for Uganda, Kenya or eastern Europe. He would say that it was dangerous for him to flee by ship or plane because it was impossible for him to reach Iran, Russia or eastern Europe without passing through regions that were dangerous to him. These discussions were held between him and Sudanese security agencies. It wasn’t that he was maneuvering, but that he was afraid.”

Eventually, Sudan decided that it was time to turn him over to France in line with agreements with Interpol and “preparations for his arrest began immediately,” added Abdul Salam. French intelligence agents soon arrived in Khartoum and French and Sudanese Interpol agencies agreed that the announcement of his arrest would be made six hours after his arrest.

“What ensued is an odd story. Carlos needed to have minor surgery that required follow-up and that’s what happened. The hospital director was unaware of who the patient was. The hospital was informed that the patient needed to be taken out of the facility. The staff were told that he was an Israeli and that he had AIDS. It is said that he was drugged so that he could be handed over to French agents without incident.”

“Throughout that day I was with the chief of intelligence. The tension was in the air until we learned that the handover was a success. I was there to act as interpreter between the Sudanese and French Interpol and saw Carlos as he was being boarded on the plane and that was the end of it.”

French intelligence agent Philippe Rondot. (AFP)

Asked whether Sudan received anything in return for aiding in the arrest, Abdul Salam said Paris provided modern training to its security agencies and also provided them with modern cameras and recording equipment.

Rondot later recalled in his memoir that Carlos awoke on the plane when he heard people speaking French around him.

Asharq Al-Awsat asked Abdul Salam about another “burdensome” guest called Osama bin Laden. He acknowledged that he first appeared in Sudan as an “investor”. Later, following his implication in the failed attempt on Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s life in 1995, Sudan decided that it was time to “get rid of this guest.”

Upon his departure from Sudan, he warned: “My exit will not protect you from the West and imperialism. You will continue to be targeted,” recalled Abdul Salam. Bin Laden had set up training camps for al-Qaeda members in Sudan, but their activities were “very limited.”

Abdul Salam said that Sudan “is now definitely paying the price” of harboring figures like Carlos and bin Laden. The militias that are now active in the country are definitely products of that point in time.

Carlos’ recollection of the ‘trap’ set up by al-Turabi and Bashir

Years ago, Asharq Al-Awsat asked Carlos at his French prison whether he had made a mistake in heading to Sudan. “Given that I was arrested there, the answer would be yes. I could have headed to various places on condition that I behave.”

“Sudanese authorities were aware that I was there. One of its ministers was on the flight that flew me from Amman to Sudan. He knew who I was,” he added.

He confirmed that Sudan had asked him to leave the country for “security reasons. I did not refuse to leave Sudan, but I refused to cooperate with a trap that was set up by al-Turabi and Bashir. I was alerted to their plan by some sympathizers within the regime in Khartoum.”

Moreover, he revealed that the “United States was the mastermind behind the trap that was overseen by some Gulf figures. The French only took part in the final stage of the operation.”