Obama Lifts Sudan Sanctions, while President Bashir perpetrates Jihad

Add to the list of foreign policy failures by the departing Obama Administration is his last minute executive order partially lifting sanctions on agricultural and transportation trade. It also unfreezes assets in the US of the corrupt regime of indicted war criminal President Omar Bashir.  The sanctions for Darfur will remain with the  only condition  left to the incoming Trump Administration  a so-called 180 day  ‘look back’ provision that might ‘snap back’ sanctions.  The move   by the Obama administration was “welcomed” by the Arab League in a Qatar Tribune report.    This was a dramatic   ‘sea change’ from a President Obama who campaigned during his 2008 election on “ending the slaughter in Darfur.”

US UN Ambassador Samantha Power rationalized the lifting of economic sanctions, imposed since 1997, at her farewell press conference, saying  there was “progress on counterterrorism and cease fires.”   She attributed ‘progress’ on counterterrorism to Sudan ending its harboring of the murderous child soldier movement of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). All while evidence mounted in reports of   New Year’s attacks by the   Bashir regime’s Jihadist militia in Darfur, the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile region. These actions breached cease fires, threatening a renewal of ethnic cleansing of indigenous peoples and fomenting monumental humanitarian crises. 

Veteran Sudan genocide watcher, Eric Reeves in a Huffington Post article called the Obama Administration executive order, “The Final Betrayal of Sudan”. He focused on the current humanitarian crisis in Darfur and especially in the Blue Nile region.  The Obama administration’s Sudan sanctions action was “upsetting” to Mark Brand of Jewish World Watch in a The Hill op ed.  The Wall Street Journal   reported  criticism of the Obama Administration decision as “inexplicable” from Leslie Lefkow deputy Africa director at Human Rights Watch.  House Foreign Affairs, Chairman, Rep. Ed Royce (R-California) characterized  it as a “last ditch effort, urging the new administration to look at Sudan with fresh eyes.”

 This last minute rapprochement with Jihadist Sudan by the outgoing Obama Administration comes in the face of a warning issued by Trump Adviser Dr. Walid Phares. He spoke at a Washington, DC conference with Nuba Mountain Sudan émigrés just after the election of President Trump on November 11, 2016.  He avowed, “There is no reason for why we and our European allies should be lifting these sanctions, this is unacceptable. Lifting the sanctions on Bashir’s regime is not acceptable”. Yet, the Wall Street Journal reported that senior officials from the Obama Administration said that the Trump transition team had been briefed on the changes.

Evidence of Bashir’s Continuing Jihad in Darfur

In this New Year there was dramatic evidence of Bashir’s Jihad strategy.  A massacre occurred in the Central Darfur town of Nertiti by marauding Sudan Armed forces and ‘Peace Forces’ mercenaries killing 11, injuring 60 civilians.  This massacre demonstrated Bashir’s callous intent when he declared a “cease fire” with resistance forces. On January 5, 2017 ‘Peace Forces’ militias attacked people in Hay al Jebel in Geneina killing  7 people and wounding  16 others. The Geneina massacre occurred following the end of the visit of Sudan’s 2nd Vice President Hassabo Mohamed Abderhaman who spent two weeks in Geneina. Since January of  last year he frequently moved between Southern, Central and a Western Darfur regions mobilizing Arabs recruits from Chad and the Central African Republic (CAR) for the Sudan ‘Peace Forces’.

The reality is that Sudan President Bashir has mobilized and equipped an international Jihad army of over 150,000 from across the Sahel region and Syria to make the final push for ethnic cleaning in Darfur, the Nuba Mountains and the Blue Nile Region. Not unlike The Lord’s Resistance Army the Janjaweed militias, now renamed ‘Peace Forces ‘are actively recruiting child soldiers aged 8 to 12 years. 

Sudan’s indicted war criminal President Omar Bashir has called on the International community to support his false peace process in Sudan.

Contrary to the promise he made to the people of America during his campaign to put an end to genocide in Darfur; Obama’s Administration closely cooperated with the genocidal regime in the name of combating terrorism. Cooperation with Khartoum’s regime helped Bashir to continue committing genocide against the people of Darfur and create more terrorist organizations in the world. By signing of this executive order, President Obama has betrayed the oppressed people of Darfur. Without Obama’s support Bashir could not continually have committed genocide against the people of Darfur since his International Criminal Court indictment in 2009.

Hoping to obtain intelligence information to combat global terrorism, Obama’s Administration systematically failed to reveal President Bashir and his Arab cabal’s secret mobilization of Mujahedeen militias known as ‘Peace Forces’ in Darfur. That replaced the Regime’s ‘Rapid Support Forces’ (RSF). The creation of these new forces would be in line with the regime’s strategy of forming and adopting militias.  That began with Janjaweed militias.  Which was followed by ‘Border Guard’ designation morphing into ‘Abu Terra’? ‘Abu Terra’ disappeared when the ‘Rapid Support Forces’ (RSF) appeared.  Now the ‘RSF’ has been replaced with the Orwellian ‘Peace Forces.’ As the strategy of establishing the Caliphate in Africa has not yet been realized, we will doubtless continue to see a succession of new iterations to hide the real identity of Bashir’s Jihadist army.

The question that one could ask is on what grounds did President Obama base his facts that Bashir’s regime had improved its human rights record in Darfur?  This despite the Nertiti and Geneina massacres by his ‘Peace Forces’ in January 2017.

What type of terrorism has the Obama’s Administration been fighting if President al Bashir is currently mobilizing and recruiting Mujahedeen in Jelly, North Darfur?

What was the motivation behind the Obama Administration signed executive order that the genocidal regime of Bashir had reduced its human right abuses in Darfur?

 New terrorist groups continually arrive in Darfur from Libya through Dongola, in North Sudan. These new groups are escorted to Darfur by ‘Peace Forces’ that some EU governments  support  technically and finance to allegedly combat illegal immigrant flow from Africa. These terrorist groups have reportedly been seen in Southern and Eastern Darfur regions. They are believed to include Boko Haram and ISIS jihadis. Villagers who have encountered them reported they are a mixture of Arabs and Africans. The latter look like Nigerians.  Those who resemble Arabs or Egyptians do not speak Arabic. They communicate with people only through interpreters. They frequently ask the names of places, directions and distances. They also depend on the use of maps and GPS to travel. They possess ISIS flags and wear theKodomul (black turban). They are moving on Toyota pickup trucks similar to those used by ‘Peace Forces’. The Sudan regime pretends that these ‘Peace Forces’ are combating illegal immigrants.  In reality they are helping bring in terrorists and Chadian rebels from Libya to Darfur. With the mobilization of newly created ‘Peace Forces’ and the arrival of terrorist groups from Libya,  Darfur war crimes will continue  to go from  bad to worse.

President Bashir and his Arab allies’ Islamic ‘Peace Forces’ have not stopped committing genocide, war crimes and crimes against the indigenous people of Darfur.  With the objective of furthering the Islamic extremist ideology, they have extended killing to the adjacent population Central African Republic and Chad. This is all part of his plan to establish through removal of African tribes a Caliphate in the Sahel region of Central Africa. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of foreign Islamist terrorists and mujahedeen from across Africa and Syria are gathering and being trained in 16 camps in the Sudan for conduct of this Jihad.

Sudan’s interior Minister admitted to the members of parliament on January 4, 2017 that there were over 3,000 armed foreign fighters present in Jebel Amir, Darfur.  This was not the first time the Sudan government revealed that there were foreign fighters in Darfur. The fact is that these fighters were brought in by the regime and controlled by its security agents in order to expand a Jihadist army.

Conclusion

The international community, especially those countries that are embracing Bashir’s regime, should take notice that the National Congress Party/Muslim Brotherhood regime in Khartoum poses a threat to international peace and security. Bashir’s strategy of raising a veritable Jihadist army to establish a Caliphate in the African Sahel region is continuing. If his strategy and his allies are not stopped it could destabilize the whole sub-region. The incoming Trump Administration now has the opportunity to change course in the first 100 days, by the appointment of a new independent minded Special Envoy in Sudan.  That appointee should have special expertise on Islamic counterterrorism to monitor abuses by the Bashir regime in Darfur, the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile Region.  

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About Lt. General Abakar M. Abdullah

Lt.  General Abakar M. Abdullah is Chairman of the Sudan Unity Movement. He is a native of North Darfur who joined the Sudan Liberation People’s Army (SPLA) in 1984 and became active in the Nuba Hills and Darfurian resistance. In 1989 he joined the Patriotic Salvation Movement in neighboring Chad based in Darfur. He served as an officer in the Chadian army for 23 years. He held senior intelligence and counterterrorism posts, including as Coordinator of the Multi-National Joint Task Force of Nigeria, Chad and Niger. He is a December 2002 graduate of the Intelligence Officers’ Advanced and Combating Terrorism Courses, US Army Intelligence Center and Schools, Fort Huachuca, Arizona. He was a Graduate Terrorism Fellow and is a Graduate of the College of International Security Affairs, National Defense University, Washington, DC, 2005. He was an International Fellow and Graduate of the US Army War College, Class of 2008.

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About Jerry Gordon

Jerry Gordon is the Sr. Vice President of the World Encounter Institute and Sr. Editor for the New English Review. 

This article was previously published on FrontPageMagazine. Read here.