Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (Hemedti), who chairs the Presidential Council of the Sudan Founding Alliance (TASIS), accused Islamist elements of igniting Sudan’s war after they felt sidelined by the now-stalled Framework Agreement, and said that General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan’s army (SAF) delayed and ultimately derailed the pact before ordering coordinated strikes on RSF positions at first light on April 15, 2023.
Speaking at a community event in Nyala, Dagalo said he backed the Framework Agreement after consulting his deputy, Abdelrahim Dagalo, and insisted his stance had been consistent: no retreat from a political settlement. He charged that al-Burhan repeatedly delayed sign-offs — “a paper of four lines” — and later objected to a clause integrating the RSF over ten years, which Dagalo called a transparent bid to block the deal.
Dagalo said al-Burhan skipped a 9 p.m. meeting on the eve of the war; he said he waited outside SAF headquarters until 2 a.m. before leaving, alleging al-Burhan was instead in a closed military session where an attack on RSF camps was approved within hours. He said four unit commanders requested time to execute, and simultaneous assaults began at first light, encircling RSF sites.
He further alleged that Police Director-General Lt. Gen. Nasr al-Din Abdelrahim — officially reported by the Port Sudan SAF junta’s Interior Ministry to have died of a heart attack in 2023 — was in fact killed after refusing to join the fighting and while preparing to defect to the RSF. Dagalo directly accused al-Burhan of ordering the killing to prevent a security-service split.
Dagalo also mocked al-Burhan’s conduct during a siege, claiming the SAF chief cried for help over the phone and was “under heavy fire,” calling him a coward whose survival owed to luck rather than battlefield resolve.
