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Sudan Needs New Date for Civilian Leadership Handover, Says Sovereign Council Member

Sudanese protesters shout slogans and wave their country's national flag as they march in the capital Khartoum, on June 3, 2021. (AFP)
Sudanese protesters shout slogans and wave their country's national flag as they march in the capital Khartoum, on June 3, 2021. (AFP)
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Sudan Needs New Date for Civilian Leadership Handover, Says Sovereign Council Member

Sudanese protesters shout slogans and wave their country's national flag as they march in the capital Khartoum, on June 3, 2021. (AFP)
Sudanese protesters shout slogans and wave their country's national flag as they march in the capital Khartoum, on June 3, 2021. (AFP)

The date for the handover of the leadership of Sudan's highest authority, the Transitional Sovereign Council, from the military to civilians is still unclear and requires discussion and a new legal decree, said a civilian member on Friday.

A failed coup attempt on Tuesday laid bare the tensions between the two sides who make up the 11-member Sovereign Council following a sensitive power-sharing agreement in 2019 and has for the first time brought public controversy over when the current council head is replaced.

Council member and former journalist Mohamed Al-Faki Suleiman described the relationship between civilian and military council members as “unwell” in an interview on state television, noting that joint meetings on various topics have become unproductive in recent weeks, Reuters reported.

Renewed political discussions and a decree from the Justice Ministry were needed to decide a handover date, he said.

In a speech on Wednesday, current council head General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan criticized Suleiman and other civilian leaders. Al-Burhan described the military as a guardian for the transition, a description Suleiman rejected.

“The goal of this is to produce a political situation where the military component is dominant and that is unacceptable,” Suleiman said, adding that military members need to become comfortable with the discussion and criticism inherent to politics.

The country's constitutional declaration, signed following a 2018-2019 uprising that resulted in the removal of former President Omar al-Bashir, set a date for handover of leadership of the Sovereign Council for May 2021. However, a peace agreement signed in October reset the clock on the transition without specifying a new date for handover.

“The transition to civilians is not secondary and shouldn't be left to fate,” Suleiman said, noting that he favored a proposal to carry out the handover in November. A simple reset of the clock would set a handover of July 2022.

In a phone call with civilian Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said that any attempts by military actors to undermine the civilian transition “would have significant consequences for the US-Sudan bilateral relationship and planned assistance,” the White House said.

In a tweet, the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee chair Sen. Bob Menendez said the US could re-impose sanctions in the case of a coup. “The military must stay in the barracks,” he added.

Sudanese authorities say the coup attempt was carried out by current military members loyal the former regime.

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Arab World

Israel Says Hezbollah Chief to Pay ‘Heavy Price’ for Jewish Holiday Attacks

First responders clear the rubble from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted a building in the southern Lebanese village of Hanouiyeh, east of Tyre, on March 30, 2026. (AFP)
First responders clear the rubble from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted a building in the southern Lebanese village of Hanouiyeh, east of Tyre, on March 30, 2026. (AFP)
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Israel Says Hezbollah Chief to Pay ‘Heavy Price’ for Jewish Holiday Attacks

First responders clear the rubble from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted a building in the southern Lebanese village of Hanouiyeh, east of Tyre, on March 30, 2026. (AFP)
First responders clear the rubble from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted a building in the southern Lebanese village of Hanouiyeh, east of Tyre, on March 30, 2026. (AFP)

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz on Thursday warned that Hezbollah chief Sheikh Naim Qassem would pay an "extraordinarily heavy price" for escalating attacks during the ongoing Jewish holidays.

"I have a clear message for Naim Qassem... you and your associates will pay an extraordinarily heavy price for the intensified rocket fire directed at Israeli citizens as they gathered to celebrate Passover Seder," Katz said in a video statement.

"You will be consigned to the depths of hell alongside Nasrallah, Khamenei, Sinwar and the other fallen figures of the axis of evil," he said, referring to the former leaders of Hezbollah, Iran, and the Palestinian Hamas movement, who have been assassinated by Israel over the past two and half years.

"The Hezbollah terrorist organization you now lead, and its supporters in Lebanon, will bear the full and severe consequences," Katz added.

His warning followed claims by Hezbollah that it had carried out a series of rocket attacks on northern Israel late Wednesday and early Thursday, as Israeli Jews began marking the Passover holidays.

Katz also reiterated that Israeli forces "will clear Hezbollah and its supporters from southern Lebanon, maintain Israeli security control throughout the Litani area, and dismantle Hezbollah's military capabilities across Lebanon."

Lebanon was drawn into the Middle East war in early March when Tehran-backed Hezbollah launched rockets towards Israel to avenge the attack that killed Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei.

Israel has responded with massive strikes across Lebanon and a ground offensive.

Arab World

UN Experts Call for Investigation into Israel's Killing of Lebanese Journalists

A woman sits in a cemetery before the funeral of Lebanese journalists, Al Manar reporter Ali Shoeib, Al Mayadeen reporter Fatima Ftouni and cameraman Mohammed Ftouni, who were killed by a targeted Israeli strike, amid escalating hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah, as the US-Israeli conflict with Iran continues, in Choueifat, Lebanon, March 29, 2026. (Reuters)
A woman sits in a cemetery before the funeral of Lebanese journalists, Al Manar reporter Ali Shoeib, Al Mayadeen reporter Fatima Ftouni and cameraman Mohammed Ftouni, who were killed by a targeted Israeli strike, amid escalating hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah, as the US-Israeli conflict with Iran continues, in Choueifat, Lebanon, March 29, 2026. (Reuters)
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UN Experts Call for Investigation into Israel's Killing of Lebanese Journalists

A woman sits in a cemetery before the funeral of Lebanese journalists, Al Manar reporter Ali Shoeib, Al Mayadeen reporter Fatima Ftouni and cameraman Mohammed Ftouni, who were killed by a targeted Israeli strike, amid escalating hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah, as the US-Israeli conflict with Iran continues, in Choueifat, Lebanon, March 29, 2026. (Reuters)
A woman sits in a cemetery before the funeral of Lebanese journalists, Al Manar reporter Ali Shoeib, Al Mayadeen reporter Fatima Ftouni and cameraman Mohammed Ftouni, who were killed by a targeted Israeli strike, amid escalating hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah, as the US-Israeli conflict with Iran continues, in Choueifat, Lebanon, March 29, 2026. (Reuters)

UN experts on Thursday called for an international investigation into the death of three Lebanese journalists in an Israeli strike, saying Israel had not provided "credible evidence" of their alleged links to armed groups.

The three journalists, including Ali Shoeib, a star correspondent for Al Manar channel of Hezbollah, which is at war with Israel, were killed on March 28 in an Israeli strike in southern Lebanon.

"We denounce strongly what has now become a standard, dangerous practice of Israel to target and kill journalists and then claim, without providing any credible evidence, that they were involved with armed groups," the experts said in a statement.

The Israeli army had described Shoeib as a member of the Radwan force, an elite Hezbollah unit, operating "under the guise of a journalist".

According to the experts, Israel's only so-called "evidence" for its claims was a photoshopped image of the journalist.

Israel also confirmed it killed journalist Fatima Ftouni of Al Mayadeen, seen as close to Hezbollah, and her brother cameraman Mohammed Ftouni, describing him as "an additional terrorist in Hezbollah's military wing".

The experts argued that working as a journalist for a media outlet linked to an armed group does not constitute direct participation in hostilities under international humanitarian law.

"Israeli officials know this, yet they choose to ignore it -- emboldened by impunity for their previous killings of journalists in Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank."

At least 231 journalists and media workers have been killed by Israel since 2023, including 210 in Gaza and 11 in Lebanon, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

Although appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council, special rapporteurs are independent experts and do not speak on behalf of the UN.

Arab World

European Nations Say Israel, Hezbollah Fighting ‘Must Cease’

A man stands atop the rubble as smoke rises from a building destroyed in an Israeli airstrike in Dahieh, Beirut's southern suburbs, Lebanon, March 14, 2026. (AP)
A man stands atop the rubble as smoke rises from a building destroyed in an Israeli airstrike in Dahieh, Beirut's southern suburbs, Lebanon, March 14, 2026. (AP)
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European Nations Say Israel, Hezbollah Fighting ‘Must Cease’

A man stands atop the rubble as smoke rises from a building destroyed in an Israeli airstrike in Dahieh, Beirut's southern suburbs, Lebanon, March 14, 2026. (AP)
A man stands atop the rubble as smoke rises from a building destroyed in an Israeli airstrike in Dahieh, Beirut's southern suburbs, Lebanon, March 14, 2026. (AP)

Eighteen European countries on Thursday urged Israel and Hezbollah to stop fighting as their latest conflict reached one month and with fears over Israeli plans to occupy part of southern Lebanon post-war. 

"Israeli military operations in Lebanon and Hezbollah's attacks must cease," the foreign ministers of the countries including Italy, Spain, Belgium, Poland and Ireland said in a joint statement. 

"We urge Israel to fully respect Lebanon's sovereignty and territorial integrity, and call on all parties, both Hezbollah and Israel, to halt military action," the statement said. 

Lebanon was sucked into the Middle East war after Tehran-backed Hezbollah launched rockets at Israel to avenge the US-Israeli attack that killed Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei. 

Israel has responded with massive strikes across Lebanon and a ground offensive. 

Lebanese authorities say the hostilities have so far killed more than 1,200 people and displaced more than one million others. 

The European ministers said they were "appalled by the dramatic situation" in Lebanon and called for an end to "unjustified and unacceptable" attacks on civilian targets such as healthcare personnel, aid workers and journalists. 

They pledged to continue providing humanitarian relief for the Lebanese population and called on the international community "to mobilize further" to help the country. 

Earlier this week, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said the country's military would occupy a swathe of southern Lebanon even after the current war against Hezbollah has ended. 

The comments have raised fears for the area's fate following the last Israeli occupation that lasted nearly two decades. 

The European nations "strongly encouraged" Israel to hold direct negotiations with the Lebanese authorities and said reform efforts by Lebanon's government "must be supported instead of being undermined". 

"Efforts to support stabilization in Lebanon are instrumental to lasting peace and security in the Middle East. De-escalation is urgently needed. Diplomacy must prevail," they said. 

The countries include Spain, Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Italy, Ireland, Latvia, Luxembourg, Moldova, Norway, Poland, San Marino, Slovenia and Sweden.