A United Nations monitoring report says Islamic State (ISIS) is training North African militants on Sudanese soil with the aim of redeploying them across the region.
Submitted to the UN Security Council in July by the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team on ISIS and al-Qaeda, the report says counter-terrorism pressure has constrained both groups in North Africa but notes ISIS attempts to rebuild by recruiting fighters from the region and training them in the Lake Chad Basin, Sudan and Somalia before redeployment. The period covered is 14 December to 22 June.
The report adds that the effort seeks to revive the long-dormant “Dhu al-Nurayn Office,” overseen by ISIS’s al-Furqan media office since 2023. It also highlights North African governments’ difficulties managing returns of foreign terrorist fighters from Iraq and Syria, and cites the dismantling in Libya of an ISIS cell that laundered money through front companies to help militants and families escape Syria’s al-Hol camp and relocate to Libya, where safe houses were funded by ISIS.
Commenting on the Sudan angle, researcher on extremist movements Maher Farghaly said the war in Sudan has created opportunities for dangerous actors to move and embed, accelerating ISIS activity. He pointed to the 2012 “Dinder cell” case in Sennar State as an early nucleus of ISIS presence, and argued that some members had ties to figures in Sudan’s Islamist movement. Farghaly said ISIS intensified its focus on Sudan after the 2019 fall of Omar al-Bashir.
A separate UN experts’ report in 2023 estimated ISIS strength in Sudan at roughly 100–200 members, reportedly led by an Iraqi known as Abu Bakr al-Iraqi who manages companies in parts of Africa. Farghaly said the current war’s security vacuum has allowed Sudan to serve as a transit hub to North and Central Africa, and noted a January ISIS propaganda message titled “The Forgotten Sudan” calling on supporters in neighboring states to re-establish a foothold inside Sudan.
He added that ISIS seeks to expand influence in Somalia, Yemen, Djibouti and Kenya, and views Sudan as a corridor for moving funds, weapons and logistics—and as a staging area to get closer to mineral sites and the Red Sea.
