Sudan ‘Islamists’ Distance Themselves from Bashir’s Regime

Bashir, al-Turabi and al-Atabani, during a conference in 2014. Getty Images
Bashir, al-Turabi and al-Atabani, during a conference in 2014. Getty Images
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Sudan ‘Islamists’ Distance Themselves from Bashir’s Regime

Bashir, al-Turabi and al-Atabani, during a conference in 2014. Getty Images
Bashir, al-Turabi and al-Atabani, during a conference in 2014. Getty Images

About a year after the fall of the Muslim Brotherhood’s rule, which lasted for nearly 30 years, many Sudanese believe that the Islamist regime is still in place. They are accused of maintaining control through cadres who have positions in important and strategic institutions and of hindering these institutions’ ability to function.

Despite the recent decisions to dismantle the regime and to prosecute corrupt Islamist leaders and those who committed crimes against the Sudanese people, most of their leaders are still at large. Some go as holding them responsible for the crises that the country is going through, such as the fuel and bread crises, traffic congestion and rampant smuggling of strategic goods.

“The Islamists still exist and control the facets of power and money and even hope to a return to power," Salah Manna, a leader in Freedom and Change and spokesman for the Committee for Dismantling Ingaz (Salvation) Regime told Asharq Al-Awsat.

He explains "their attempts to thwart the transitional authority are constant. Not a single day has gone by without a conspiracy."

He referred to an incident where security authorities seized explosives in Khartoum. But Manna affirmed the government's ability to "eliminate them, undo their influence and restore the Sudanese state from them."

He believed that "the crimes they committed during their 30 years in power ended their prospects of a political future in Sudan forever, and the state will not allow for parties to be founded on religious grounds again."

The leaders of the Popular Congress Party, founded by Dr. Hassan al-Turabi, refute accusations that they are behind the crises. They say that it is "the natural result of the failures of the leftist government led by the Communists and the Baathists, and it has nothing to do with Islamists."

Bashir Adam Rahma, the party's designate general secretary, tells Asharq Al-Awsat: “We have nothing to do with what is happening. The policies of the ruling leftist groups are what caused the crises and led to the cessation of foreign aid, which they would have received had they pursued moderate policies”.

Regarding smuggling, Rahma says "smuggling to neighboring countries is an old problem and needs to be dealt with. If the government does not implement foreign agendas, it will not be supported."

He defended his party’s participation in ruling the country before the regime’s fall, noting that “we contributed to ... exposing financial corruption in the cabinet and parliament, which tarnished the image of the regime and encouraged the Sudanese take to the streets”.

Rahma admitted that the Salvation Front regime, which his party participated in during its early stages, was corrupt. "We have apologized for participating in the 1989 coup dozens of times.”

For his part, the defected Islamist and head of the Reform Now Movement, Ghazi Salah al-Din al-Atabani, is reluctant to hand over al-Bashir. And he says: “When I participated in the Doha negotiations, we reached an acceptable solution that was national and achieved justice... We reached a formula accepted by the international community (stipulating that) anyone who was harmed may submit his complaint against whoever is responsible, including the president. As for a national trial, but under international supervision, and I am committed to this agreement that brings justice, takes the suffering that was incurred into account and quells the fears of those who claim that this calls for international interference.”

With regard to their electoral prospects, al-Atabani expects that, if elections are held on time, they will receive 20% of the votes, from a bloc he called “hardcore Islamists”, “who represent between 20 and 25% of the population.”

Former analyst Abu Dhar Ali Al-Amin does not see an opportunity for the Islamists to come together. "Thirty years of rule have divided them, they now lack a unifying ideology, and there is no leader able to unite them.”

He explains that the future of political Islam movements “faces many hurdles in the short and long term."

"They still refuse to acknowledge that they lost a strong and coherent organized movement that had been uniting them, and that they lost power. For this reason, they continue to act arrogantly, use the same language and allow the same people to lead them.”



Scotland Awaits Famous Son as Trump Visits Mother’s Homeland 

A general view of the Trump Turnberry hotel and golf resort in Turnberry, on the west coast of Scotland, on July 21, 2025. (AFP)
A general view of the Trump Turnberry hotel and golf resort in Turnberry, on the west coast of Scotland, on July 21, 2025. (AFP)
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Scotland Awaits Famous Son as Trump Visits Mother’s Homeland 

A general view of the Trump Turnberry hotel and golf resort in Turnberry, on the west coast of Scotland, on July 21, 2025. (AFP)
A general view of the Trump Turnberry hotel and golf resort in Turnberry, on the west coast of Scotland, on July 21, 2025. (AFP)

Donald Trump will fly into Scotland on Friday for a private visit to the land where his mother was born and spent her childhood on the remote Isle of Lewis.

"It's great to be home, this was the home of my mother," he said when he arrived on his last visit in 2023.

Born Mary Anne MacLeod, Trump's mum emigrated to the United States when she was 18. She then met and married Fred Trump, kickstarting the family's meteoric rise that has led their son, Donald, all the way to the White House.

During his visit the current US president, who is six months into his second term, plans to officially open his latest golf course in northeastern Aberdeen -- making him the owner of three such links in Scotland.

Although Donald Trump has talked openly about his father Fred -- a self-made millionaire and property developer whose own father emigrated from Germany -- he remains more discreet about his mother, who died in 2000 at the age of 88.

She was born in 1912 on Lewis, the largest island in the Outer Hebrides in northwest Scotland, and grew up in the small town of Tong.

Trump visited the humble family home in 2008, pausing for a photo in front of the two-storey house. He has cousins who still live in the house, which has been modernized since Mary Anne MacLeod's time but remains modest, standing just around 200 meters (650 feet) from the sea.

Its slate roof and grey walls are a world away from Trump's luxury Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, or his gold-adorned apartment in Trump Tower, New York.

According to the British press, which based its reports on local documents, Trump's grandfather was a fisherman.

MacLeod was the 10th and last child of the family, and her first language was Gaelic before she learnt English at school.

Life was tough on Lewis after World War I, which claimed the lives of many of the island's young men. Following in the footsteps of her older sister, and so many other Scots over the decades, she decided to emigrate to the United States.

MacLeod boarded the SS Transylvania from Glasgow in 1930, bound for New York.

- Pink Rolls-Royce -

On her immigration papers she wrote she was a "domestic" when asked about her profession. One of Trump's sisters recalled that MacLeod had worked as a nanny in a wealthy family.

But a few years later her life turned around when she reportedly met Fred Trump at an evening dance. They were married in 1936 in Manhattan's wealthy Upper East Side, and MacLeod became a US citizen in 1942.

As Fred Trump built and expanded his property empire in the city by constructing middle-class homes in districts such as Queens and Brooklyn, Mary Anne devoted herself to charitable works.

"Even in old age, rich and respected and with her hair arranged in a dynamic orange swirl, she would drive a rose-colored Rolls-Royce to collect coins from laundry machines in apartment blocks that belonged to the Trumps," the Times wrote this month.

Photos of her hobnobbing with New York high society show her with her blonde hair swept up in a bun, reminiscent of her son's distinctive side-swept coiffure.

She was "a great beauty", Donald Trump has gushed in one of his rare comments about his mother, adding she was also "one of the most honest and charitable people I have ever known".

And on X he has pointed to "great advice from my mother: 'Trust in God and be true to yourself'".

In 2018 then-British prime minister Theresa May presented Trump with his family tree tracing his Scottish ancestors.

Less than 20,000 people live on Lewis, and MacLeod is a common surname.

Residents tell how Mary Anne MacLeod regularly returned to her roots until her death, while one of the president's sisters won over the locals by making a large donation to a retirement home.

But Donald Trump has not impressed everyone in Scotland, and protests against his visit are planned on Saturday in Aberdeen and Edinburgh.

Earlier this year in April a banner fluttered from a shop in the port of Stornoway, the island's largest town. "Shame on you Donald John," it proclaimed.

Local authorities have asked for the banner to be taken down, but it is due to tour the island this summer with residents invited to sign it.