The Ground Forces of the Sudanese Armed Forces Today, Part 1

Amid another 72-hours-cease-fire, and although nearly all of the foreign diplomatic personnel was evacuated, the war in Sudan is raging on. For better understanding of involved forces, Dr. Colin Robinson - who is researching the Sudanese Armed Forces for years, and has already published a number of related articles - kindly prepared a two-part review of the Sudanese Armed Forces.

***

Good information about the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) is scarce. Unfortunately, some often-repeated claims by the likes of Jane’s Sentinel in 2010 date back over 30 years, to the Library of Congress Sudan: A Country Study whose research was finished in 1992. It is useful to quickly start decades ago because it makes clear which sometimes repeated claims are completely out of date and which may be more current.

Establishment

The Sudanese Armed Forces today are tracing their origins to the British Sudan Defence Force, established in 1925 as auxiliaries to the Imperial forces deployed in this territory and disestablished in 1956, when the country was released into independence.

From 1955 to 1972 the war in the south dominated the more military-, as opposed to political, affairs of the Sudanese Armed Forces; excursions to the Congo under UN command, and even two deployments to Egypt as the Arab-Israeli wars broke out, were sideshows.

Nowadays largely forgotten is the fact that on its establishment, the Sudanese Armed Forces (also Sudanese Defence Forces) included a female unit: this photograph is shown the outfit in question during a parade in Khartoum of 1960.

Build-Up

From the late 1980s the government began to draw the Armed Forces closer to itself by allowing them to set up commercial firms. On 30 June 1989, Brigadier Omar al-Bashir brought to an end the civilian government of Ahmed Al-Mirghani whose commitment to prosecuting the second civil war in the South had been waning. Brigadier al-Bashir up to that time had been commanding the independent 8th Infantry Brigade.

Soon afterwards the first of the notorious, separate, paramilitary forces was officially established, the Popular Defence Forces. The “immediate antecedents of the Popular Defence Forces.. were tribal militias recruited by Sudan’s Umma National Party government during the mid-1980s.  These partisan forces were used as part of the war effort against the Southern Sudan People’s Liberation Army in areas where northern and southern populations were intermixed. The regular SAF regarded them with suspicion and argued against the government’s support of these forces. ..their concerns proved to be correct in the long term.” PDF units served alongside the SAF in the south in the 1990s and in Darfur after 2003. They were disestablished in 2019.

But returning for now to the SAF, there are three sources on its structure in 1990-91 which corroborate each other. The Library of Congress Country Study edited by H.C. Metz listed the now-much-repeated six regional commands/divisions: Northern at Shendi; Eastern; Western at El Fasher; Central at El Obeid, Southern at Juba; and the Khartoum Garrison. The International Institute for Strategic Studies in the Military Balance 1990-91 listed a force of some 68,000 organised into six regional commands (‘infantry divisions’) and one military district, plus the armoured and airborne division headquarters. The IISS also listed a Republican Guard brigade and a total of 22 infantry brigades of various types and one armoured brigade.

A U.S. diplomatic cable dispatched from the Embassy in Khartoum to the State Department (released decades later by Wikileaks) listed the army as 55,000-60,000 strong as of May 31, 1990. The cable said the army had four infantry divisions; the 7th Armoured Division (in south Khartoum); one engineer division; one airborne division consisting of one brigade, special forces and reconnaissance units; field and air defence artillery units, and a Transportation and Supply Corps. The broad picture is generally similar between all three documents: regions/divisions cover the entire country and direct a fluctuating number of brigades, depending on regional requirements.

The IISS Military Balance 1992-93 listed an engineer division for the first time, and a Special Forces battalion had also been added as part of the airborne division. Strength was now estimated at 75,000. By 1995-96, the IISS listed 115,000 personnel including an estimated 30,000 conscripts, and formations included the six regional commands, the armoured division, the airborne division, now including a Special Forces brigade, 25 infantry brigades (one mechanised), a reconnaissance brigade, ten artillery brigades and three artillery regiments, and an engineer division.

After the coup the new regime set aside the institutional objections of the military and continued to build up paramilitary and tribal forces. Within a day, General Fathi Ahmed Ali and 27 other army generals had been dismissed.[1] Al-Bashir and the other leaders of the coup renewed their commitment to the civil war. Irregular and paramilitary forces would become more and more of the government’s war effort. “..The military-Islamist duopoly of President al-Bashir and Sheikh Hassan al-Turabi violently repressed opposition. .. In order to run the country on a minimal budget, the regime established an elaborate network of parallel financing, including further proliferating paramilitaries. .. Counter-insurgency in southern Sudan was more thoroughly monetized.” Professional and experienced military officers who opposed al-Bashir’s new government began to be replaced by regime loyalists in 1990. There were extensive purges of the regular armed forces. By 1998, there were growing reservations within SAF about the PDF; compulsory national service was re-imposed that same year.

During the 1950s and 1960s, the SAF was mostly equipped with British-made heavy weapons - like this Ferret armoured car. It was only during the late 1960s that it began acquiring the Soviet- and then Chinese-made weaponry. For a detailed listing of Sudanese fighting vehicles, please see the related article by Oryx.

Early 2000s

By August 2001 the IISS Army strength estimate had increased to an estimated 112,500 but still an estimated 20,000 conscripts. There were six infantry divisions listed but no mention of any regional commands; one armoured division; one mechanised infantry division; airborne division; engineer division; border guard brigade; eight independent infantry brigades, including one mechanised; and five special forces companies.[2]

After the Comprehensive Peace Agreement between North and South Sudan was agreed, the North increased its military payroll. A separate set of Joint Integrated Units, of six weak divisions, was established which might have become the basis for a joint North-South future army if the two sides had agreed to stay together. The two component Northern and Southern parts of the JIUs sometimes fought each other. The JIUs uneasily garrisoned areas of southern Sudan up until 2011.

An open United Nations report said that the 'Western Military Region [Darfur] was one of ten military commands' as of 30 January 2006. This accords with a UN document issued in October 2004 that listed a total of nine regions, which makes a total of ten – if one also adds the Northern Region mentioned above. Sometime between 1991 and 2004 a Blue Nile Region has been established. Three military regions then become part of South Sudan. Reporting from UNMIS in February 2011 confirmed that the Joint Integrated Units were splitting back into their component halves, North and South.

---

[1] Salmon 2007, 14.

[2] IISS Military Balance 2001-2002, p.278.