Hamidati: We Are Against Anyone Who Wants to Be a Dictator

Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, commander of Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces - Reuters
Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, commander of Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces - Reuters
TT

Hamidati: We Are Against Anyone Who Wants to Be a Dictator

Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, commander of Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces - Reuters
Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, commander of Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces - Reuters

Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo (Hamidati), commander of Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces, said his conflict was with military leaders clinging to power, and not with the army.

“We are against anyone who wants to be a dictator,” he told RSF troops at a military base in the capital of Khartoum.

In his speech, Dagalo played down any tensions between his forces and the military as an institution.

“There is no problem between the military and the Rapid Support (Forces),” he told cheering RSF troops.

“We want to achieve a true democratic transition. We want this country to rise.”

The dispute between Dagalo and other military generals has escalated in recent weeks.

“Any party we ask to support Sudan, it tells us: after the formation of the civilian government,” he said.

Sudan was plunged into chaos after a military coup in October 2021, stalling its short-lived transition to democracy after nearly three decades of autocratic rule under President Omar al-Bashir.

The coup came more than two years after a popular uprising forced the removal of al-Bashir and his government in April 2019.



Lebanon Hopes for Neighborly Relations in First Message to New Syria Government

Syria's new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa (C) arrives for a meeting with visiting Druze officials from Lebanon's Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) in Damascus on December 22, 2024. (AFP)
Syria's new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa (C) arrives for a meeting with visiting Druze officials from Lebanon's Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) in Damascus on December 22, 2024. (AFP)
TT

Lebanon Hopes for Neighborly Relations in First Message to New Syria Government

Syria's new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa (C) arrives for a meeting with visiting Druze officials from Lebanon's Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) in Damascus on December 22, 2024. (AFP)
Syria's new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa (C) arrives for a meeting with visiting Druze officials from Lebanon's Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) in Damascus on December 22, 2024. (AFP)

Lebanon said on Thursday it was looking forward to having the best neighborly relations with Syria, in its first official message to the new administration in Damascus.

Lebanese caretaker Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib passed the message to his Syrian counterpart, Asaad Hassan al-Shibani, in a phone call, the Lebanese Foreign Ministry said on X.

Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah played a major part propping up Syria's ousted President Bashar al-Assad through years of war, before bringing its fighters back to Lebanon over the last year to fight in a bruising war with Israel - a redeployment which weakened Syrian government lines.

Under Assad, Hezbollah used Syria to bring in weapons and other military equipment from Iran, through Iraq and Syria and into Lebanon. But on Dec. 6, anti-Assad fighters seized the border with Iraq and cut off that route, and two days later, opposition factions captured the capital Damascus.

Syria's new de-facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa is seeking to establish relations with Arab and Western leaders after toppling Assad.